Tag: criminal
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FDA Debars Importer After Guilty Plea for Seafood Mislabeling
The Food and Drug Administration has debarred seafood importer Richard Stowell from importing food into the United States for three years based on his felony conviction for instructing his company’s employees to mislabel shrimp from Thailand and Malaysia as shrimp from Ecuador and Honduras and then selling it to a supermarket chain. Stowell pleaded guilty…
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Federal Criminal Charges Filed Against Peanut Corp. Owner and Employees
In a 76-count indictment, four individuals formerly associated with the Peanut Corp. of America (PCA), which was the source of a nationwide Salmonella outbreak in 2009, have been charged with conspiracy, mail and wire fraud, obstruction of justice and other counts involving the distribution of adulterated or misbranded food. United States v. Parnell, No. 13-12…
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Documentary Short on Prosecutorial Conduct Highlights Kosher Meatpacking Plant Executive’s Case
A recently released documentary short, titled “Unjustified: The Unchecked Power of America’s Justice System,” focuses on the fallout from a 2008 immigration raid on a kosher meatpacking plant in Iowa. Former Agriprocessors executive Sholom Rubashkin was later charged with numerous violations, including violating child labor laws, identity theft and bank fraud. He was convicted on…
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Iowa Egg Farm Manager Pleads Guilty in Effort to Bribe Federal Inspector
The manager of an Iowa egg farm that recalled 550 million eggs in a 2010 Salmonella outbreak that may have sickened 2,000 people has reportedly entered a guilty plea to a charge of conspiring to bribe a public official to allow the sale of eggs that failed to meet federal standards. United States v. Wasmund, No.…
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Former Kosher Meatpacking Plant Manager Loses Sentencing Appeal
Sholom Rubashkin, who managed a kosher meatpacking facility in Postville, Iowa, and was convicted on 86 counts related to financial fraud, lost the appeal of his conviction and the 324-month prison sentence imposed by a federal district court. United States v. Rubashkin, Nos. 10-2487/3580 (8th Cir., decided September 16, 2011). Additional details about the case…
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Senate Adopts Food Safety Crime Bill
The U.S. Senate has approved a bill (S. 216) designed to “strengthen criminal penalties for companies that knowingly violate food safety standards and place tainted food products on the market,” according to the legislation’s sponsor, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.). The proposal would increase offenses from a misdemeanor to a felony, establish fines and give law…
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Maximillian Potter, “The Assassin in the Vineyard,” Vanity Fair, May 2011
“When Aubert de Villaine received an anonymous note, in January 2010, threatening the destruction of his priceless heritage unless he paid a one-million-euro ransom, he thought it was a sick joke,” writes Maximillian Potter in this May 2011 Vanity Fair article chronicling “an unprecedented and decidedly un-French” plan to poison the world’s most famous vineyard,…
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Fishy Seafood Labels Result in Felony and Misdemeanor Convictions
According to the Department of Justice, a Massachusetts-based fish packer has been convicted of several criminal charges for falsely labeling packages of frozen fish fillets. A federal jury in Boston found Stephen Delaney guilty of a felony violation of the Lacey Act for falsely labeling $8,000 worth of frozen pollock, a product of China, as…