WREG.com

Peanut company executive sentenced to 28 years in Salmonella outbreak

Photo: Don Petersen, AP

ALBANY, Ga. — A former peanut company executive was sentenced Monday to 28 years in prison for his role in a deadly salmonella outbreak, the stiffest punishment ever handed out to a producer in a foodborne illness case.

The outbreak in 2008 and 2009 killed nine Americans and sickened hundreds more, and it triggered one of the largest food recalls in U.S. history.

Before he was sentenced, former Peanut Corporation of America owner Stewart Parnell listened from his courtroom seat as nine victims testified about the terror and grief caused by peanut butter traced to the company’s plant in southwest Georgia.

One of the victims was 10-year-old Jacob Hurley, who was just 3 when he was stricken by salmonella from peanut butter crackers that left him vomiting and rushing to the toilet for nearly two weeks.

“I think it’s OK for him to spend the rest of his life in prison,” Jacob told the judge.

Jeff Almer said his 72-year-old mother was battling back from cancer when she died in December 2008 after eating peanut butter from Parnell’s plant.

“You took my mom,” Almer said. “You kicked her right off the cliff.”

When a jury convicted Parnell and two co-defendants a year ago, experts said it was the first time American food processors had stood trial in a food-poisoning case.

A federal jury convicted Parnell, 61, of knowingly shipping contaminated peanut butter and of faking results of lab tests intended to screen for salmonella. Judge W. Louis Sands estimated Parnell faced up to 803 years in prison for his crimes.

“These acts were driven simply by the desire to profit and to protect profits notwithstanding the known risks” from salmonella, the judge said. “This is commonly and accurately referred to as greed.”

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