# News & Current Events > Economy & Markets >  Peanut Boss Sentenced To 28 Years For Deadly Salmonella Outbreak

## enhanced_deficit

Pretty incredible especially considering that vast majority of Wall Street business crooks usually never get prison terms:

*Peanut Boss Sentenced To 28 Years For Deadly Salmonella Outbreak*

*Stewart Parnell is the first modern U.S. food executive imprisoned for poisoning customers.*

     Kim Bellware   Associate Chicago Editor, The Huffington Post 

   09/21/2015 10:27 PM EDT 

             An ex-peanut company mogul may spend the rest of his life behind  bars after a federal judge in Georgia on Monday sentenced him to 28  years for shipping tainted products that caused a deadly nationwide  salmonella outbreak seven years ago. 
Stewart Parnell, the former Peanut Corporation of America owner, was convicted of  conspiracy, obstruction of justice, wire fraud and other crimes related  the 2008 and 2009 outbreak that killed nine people, sickened more than  700 and prompted one of the largest food recalls in U.S. history. Two  others involved with the now-bankrupt company also were sentenced to  long prison terms.
       Monday's sentences are the first felony punishments for executives  in a food-borne outbreak in 77 years, according to attorney Bill Marler,  who represents several victims of Parnell's products.
       “It’s significant -- very significant," Marler said after the  sentencing. "Even if [they] end up not spending  much time in jail, the  sentences send a strong message to executives." 
       Four victims testified during the sentencing, including  7-year-old Jacob Hurley, who was 3 when he became seriously ill from  crackers made with tainted peanut products. Also present was  Lou Tousignant, whose 78-year-old father, Cliff, died after eating  tainted peanut butter. 

Tainted products from Parnell's Georgia processing plant led to the  recall of approximately 4,000 processed foods, from crackers to pet  food. 

        Parnell's attorneys argued their client was a scapegoat. Jurors,  who heard evidence of unsanitary conditions that included roaches,  rodents, bird droppings and a leaky roof, were unconvinced.
       Email, lab and financial records showed that Parnell was aware of  the conditions and wrote an email to a manager in 2007, saying: "Just ship it." 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/...b0fde8b0cf81c5

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## angelatc

And here I would have thought the libertarian solution would be to sue them for damages, not a criminal conviction.

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## tod evans

More federal overreach.

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## Brian4Liberty

> killed nine people, sickened more than 700


Comparisons are always interesting. If this guy had driven around after drinking and killed nine people, what would the charges and punishment be? If he had repeatedly shot a gun randomly in the air and killed 9 people and wounded 700, what would the penalty be?

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## morfeeis

seeing that one of the biggest causes of suicide has been the loss of employment shouldn't  we have a bunch of bankers sitting in jail right now too?

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## Suzanimal

> Comparisons are always interesting. If this guy had driven around after drinking and killed nine people, what would the charges and punishment be? If he had repeatedly shot a gun randomly in the air and killed 9 people and wounded 700, what would the penalty be?


If he killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people with bombs...

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## dryan1982

http://www.wsj.com/articles/ex-peanu...rup-1442873738



> A former Georgia peanut executive was sentenced to 28 years in prison on Monday for presiding over a cover-up that led to a deadly salmonella outbreak, marking what legal experts believe to be the most severe punishment yet in a U.S. food-safety case.
> A U.S. district judge in Albany, Ga., sentencedStewart Parnell, the 61-year-old former owner of Peanut Corp. of America, after a jury found him guilty last year on dozens of felony counts, including conspiracy to conceal that many of the companys products were contaminated with salmonella. Between 2008 and 2009, nine people died and more than 700 others fell ill after eating peanut butter or other products made at the companys plant in rural Georgia, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
> The prison sentencebelieved to be by far the harshest ever levied in a food-safety casehighlights the governments stricter enforcement of food-safety laws following several major outbreaks of foodborne illnesses over the past decade. The lengthy term in part reflects the overwhelming evidence presented by federal prosecutors that Mr. Parnell knowingly led a scheme to ship tainted products, as well as the large number of people affected by the outbreak and the financial losses incurred, according to lawyers involved in food-safety cases.
> Until now, legal experts said, the toughest punishment handed down in at least a half century for crimes connected to such an outbreak was by a federal judge in Iowa, who last April sentenced the owner of a large egg producer and his son to three months in prison for their involvement in a 2010 salmonella outbreak that sickened thousands of people and led to a nationwide recall. A Colorado judge sentenced two brothers to five years probation after the pair pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges following a 2011 listeria outbreak linked to their farms cantaloupes that resulted in 33 deaths.
> In the Peanut Corp. case, prosecutors introduced internal emails they said showed Mr. Parnell and his company had for years hidden the fact that many of the firms products were contaminated with salmonella.
> In some cases, company officials falsified lab results, stating peanut products were safe to eat when tests showed otherwise, or when products had never been tested at all, according to court papers.
> One email highlighted Mr. Parnells anxiety after he learned that an order of peanut products would be held up because test results werent yet available. S, just ship it, he wrote, according to the court documents. I cannot afford to loose [sic] another customer.
> Acting Associate Attorney General Stuart Delery said Mondays sentence is an example of the Justice Departments forceful actions against any individual or company who compromises the safety of Americas food supply for financial gain.
> Obviously, we are very disappointed in the 28 years, said Tom Bondurant, Mr. Parnells lead attorney, adding that the prison sentence is extremely harsh, and we believe we have viable grounds for appeal.
> ...


Now, I am guessing that this a government intrusion into the marketplace and that this man is being unjustly targeted by excessive regulations.  It was probably also the fault of the employees who observed the unsafe conditions but didn't quit and report it, and also of the people who consumed the tainted peanut butter and died because after all every person is supposed to look out for their own health and not rely on the government to take care of them.  I'll also venture that in a real free market this man would never have taken the actions he did because he would have been too worried about his company's reputation and that this is just further proof of how the government make things worse. And as the topper, I'll venture that the marketplace if this man is indeed guilty of wrong doing that the marketplace would have punished him naturally, as in bringing charges against him and sending him to jail without any need for government intervention.

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