“Bondurant also tried to make the jury sympathetic to ‘a loving grandfather’” continues Almer. “He took a quote from Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and twisted it around, claiming the senator said ‘convict first, investigate later,’ whereas what Sen. Leahy actually said was the responsible people needed to serve jail time.”
The 2008-2009 PCA Salmonella outbreak and subsequent recall illustrates the importance of process validation, sanitation controls, and supplier controls.
On the day of the verdict, Almer prepared for the worst and hoped for the best. He went to the courtroom and sat in front row seat at the side opposite of the Parnell family and listened as the courtroom clerk read the verdicts. “Count one…we the jury find the defendant—guilty.” They kept reading “guilty,” “guilty,” “guilty.”
The clerk repeated guilty verdicts on most counts for Stewart’s brother and former PCA peanut broker, Michael Parnell. Together, the Parnell brothers received guilty verdicts on a total of 97 federal felony counts including conspiracy and fraud. The court also found Mary Wilkerson guilty on one of two counts (obstruction of justice).
Almer says he remembered his mother’s last days as the clerk read the verdicts. He was overwhelmed with emotion sitting with tears in his eyes and feeling far too alone as his own family and other victims’ families were not present due to the fluid nature of the court proceeding, making attendance near impossible.
He also watched as the three defendants’ families reacted to the verdicts, recalling how Parnell’s family members started sobbing, the sounds of their crying filled the courtroom. This emotional moment hit Almer hard—relief and closure for some, yet new pain and uncertainty for other families. He says he didn’t take any personal satisfaction as he watched another family become destroyed.
Almer could not help but notice that the prosecution team was emotional, too. He thanked them for their years of work on the case and putting their lives on hold for five years. “Sorry I was a pain in your butts for so long,” he told attorney Patrick Hearn. The prosecutor’s reply left Almer speechless, “Jeff, you made us care about this case.”
(At the time this issue went to print, none of the PCA defendants have been sentenced yet.)
A Rare Case
The PCA case—U.S. v. Stewart Parnell, Michael Parnell, and Mary Wilkerson—is one of only a few examples of court cases where the executives of a food company have been prosecuted in court for its actions involving the Responsible Corporate Officer doctrine of criminal liability that resulted from the Supreme Court’s decision in U.S. v. Park (1975). The only other food cases in the 40 years since the Supreme Court’s decision are 2013’s U.S. v. Eric Jensen and Ryan Jensen (pertaining to a 2011 Listeria outbreak in which their adulterated cantaloupe sickened more than 125 people in 28 states and killed over 30 people) and the recent U.S. v. Quality Egg, LLC, Austin DeCoster, and Peter DeCoster (for allowing contaminated eggs to reach consumers in 2010, causing an outbreak of Salmonella and the recall of over a half a billion eggs).
The 2008-2009 PCA Salmonella outbreak and subsequent recall illustrates the importance of process validation, sanitation controls, and supplier controls. Many policymakers viewed this event as one of the reasons why Congress later passed the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act.
Detwiler is the senior policy coordinator for food safety at STOP Foodborne Illness. He has over 20 years of involvement in food safety reform, including having served two terms as a USDA regulatory policy advisor on meat and poultry inspection. Detwiler teaches Regulatory Affairs of Food at Northeastern University where his is also a Doctoral Candidate in Law and Policy. Reach him at [email protected].
A Food Safety Plan
Perhaps if PCA had a food safety plan in place, the deadly Salmonella outbreak could have been prevented or at least its investigation shortened. Required components of a food safety plan (as required by FSMA) include:
- Hazard Analysis,
- Prevention Control,
- Process Preventive Controls
- Food Allergen Preventive Controls
- Sanitation Preventive Controls
- Supplier Preventive Controls
- Recall Plan, and
- Implementation Records.—D.D.
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