William B. Aossey Jr., founder of the Midamar Corporation, the leading USA based Halal Food Brand and Global Supply Chain Management Company serving the Middle East, South East Asia and the Far East, was sentenced on February 25 to two years in a federal prison following a three-year supervised probation.
He was found guilty of wrongly claiming that beef exported to Malaysia and Indonesia by his company was halal.
According to Tribune, prosecutors disclosed that the 74-year-old told his employees to lie about the origin of their products so that they could export them to Malaysia and Indonesia from 2007 to 2010. Both the countries have very strict slaughter standards and they limit imports to only those slaughterhouses which are certified as providers of halal meat.
The products that were being sent to the Malaysia and Indonesia came from a Minnesota slaughterhouse, PM beef, which was not approved by them. Aossey told his employees to remove the PM beef tags from the meat and replace them with J F O'Neill Packing Co, which is a certified slaughterhouse for halal meat.
Aossey is the founder and long-time chief executive of Iowa's Midamar Corporation established in 1974 as an International Development company in the Rural Iowa.
Imposing a $60,000 fine and $1,500 special assessment on Aossey, U.S. District Court chief judge for Northern Iowa Linda R. Reade through a Cedar Rapids jury found Aossey guilty on 15 out of the 19 counts in July 2015. Judge Reade imposed a 24-month penalty on each of the 15 counts but allowed Aossey to serve the time concurrently. She also allowed the three years of supervised release to be served concurrently.
On the other hand, Islamic Services of America and two of Aossey's sons, Jalal and Yahya "Bill" Aossey who are also Midamar's directors pleaded guilty before the trial commenced. They did not plead guilty to allegations that Midamar sold millions in beef to customers overseas that didn't follow the halal practices promised in its labeling and advertising.
