Peanut Exec Who Intentionally Sold Salmonella-Tainted Peanuts Recommended for Life In Prison

yahoo.com ^ | July 24, 2015 | Korin Miller

[grundle]

Prosecutors are recommending a sentence of life in prison for a peanut executive convicted in a deadly salmonella-poisoning case.

Stewart Parnell, the former owner of Peanut Corporation of America, was convicted last September of knowingly selling truckloads of peanut butter contaminated with salmonella from his plant in Georgia to food processors.

The recommendation for his sentencing, which a lawyer for one of the victims called “unprecedented,” was revealed on Wednesday, the Associated Press reports.

The contaminated peanut butter caused a salmonella outbreak that spanned 46 states and lasted from 2008 to 2009, sparking a massive recall by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

It killed nine people and left more than 700 ill.

After a seven-week trial, Parnell and his brother, food broker Michael Parnell, were both charged with 76 federal counts linked to intentionally shipping peanut products that tested positive for salmonella, CNN reports.

During the trial, federal prosecutors presented more than 1,000 documents, including a March 2007 email from Stewart Parnell to a plant manager about the tainted peanut butter. “Just ship it,” he wrote in the message.

[DannyTN]

If salmonella peanuts are outlawed, only outlaws will have salmonella peanuts...

Fixed it.

[grey_whiskers]

Found a peanut,
found a peanut,
found a peanut just now...

Hang the bastard.

[IYAS9YAS]

During the trial, federal prosecutors presented more than 1,000 documents, including a March 2007 email from Stewart Parnell to a plant manager about the tainted peanut butter. “Just ship it,” he wrote in the message.

And the plant manager's sentence?

[Ethan Clive Osgoode]

People will do absolutely anything for a buck. Sell baby parts, sell contaminated food, sell chemo treatments to patients that don’t have cancer... even sell their own grandma’s body to dog-food processing plant. Greed and avarice are much bigger problems in society than we like to admit.

[trebb]

so did he sell peanuts that were KNOWN to have salmonella contamination?

or did he just sell peanuts that they knew had not been roasted to a high enough temperature to ensure that any possible salmonella contamination would be neutralized?

because these are not the same things.

Tell that to the people who died and who left families behind....

They may be technically different things, but when you knowingly put the public at risk by distributing a product that may be hazardous/fatal, despite having the means to quality test that product to ensure its safety, you have committed murder regardless of the nuances one can spin.