The CEO of the peanut corporation involved with a salmonella outbreak that went on in 2008 and 2009 was found guilty last week of conspiracy; the outbreak made 714 people sick and was linked at the time with up to nine deaths.
The charges made against the CEO of the peanut corporation, Stewart Parnell, were those in regard with actually knowing that the products the company sold were tainted, as well as faking results in tests directed towards detecting salmonella. However, the CEO the peanut corporation wasn't the only person on trial, as his brother Michael Parnell was also charged and found guilty of conspiracy; and Mary Wilkerson, the quality control manager at the Peanut Corporation of America plant, was charged with obstructing justice along with the two brothers.
The whole ordeal led to one of the biggest food scares in United States history.
According to reports by British newspaper The Daily News, Experts say the accusations made against the CEO of peanut corporation marks the first time that food processors have been tried in a federal food-poisoning case.
The case against the CEO of the peanut company wasn't set out to become one about the sickening and death of consumers; rather, prosecution attorneys focused the direction of the trial in "the conduct that led to these people's sickness", as said by Attorney Michael Moore of Georgia's Middle District.
In the meantime, the Parnell brother's defense admitted that there had been knowledge that tainted peanut butter had left the plant's facilities, but they denied the brothers had been part of the scheme and it was actually done behind their backs. The defense accused two plant managers of knowing that the goods sent out to food producers like Kellogg's had not passed the salmonella testing; both employees pleaded guilty to the charges.
