A judge Monday sentenced 61-year-old Parnell to 28 years in prison.
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Relatives of Americans whose passings were connected to salmonella-corrupted nourishment from a Georgia nut plant are commending hardened jail sentences forced on the plant’s proprietor and two others. Wilkerson was sentenced to 5 years. Hours later, they left the courthouse applauding the sentence. Mary Wilkerson, age 41, who served as a former quality control manager, received 5 years.
For Jeff Almer, Parnell’s sentencing brought relief. “Our request is not a selfish request; we only ask that you assign any monies to aid families who have suffered or are suffering from food borne illnesses”. “I’ve already had multiple conversations today with clients asking what they can do within their companies to avoid a similar fate”.
“These acts were driven simply by the desire to profit and to protect profits notwithstanding the known risks” from salmonella, Judge W. Louis Sands said.
“We have lost our loved ones and have worked hard to help to prevent this from happening to others”, said the letter, which Almer shared with CNN. The reality of the facts in this care are harsh.
Addressing the court in his own behalf, Stewart Parnell apologized to victims and their families.
Emails obtained by congressional investigators showed that Parnell once directed employees to “turn them loose” after samples of peanuts tested positive for salmonella and then were cleared in another test. Several months before the outbreak, when a final lab test found salmonella, Parnell expressed concern to a Georgia plant manager, writing in an October . 6, 2008, email that the delay “is costing us huge $$$$$”.
Prosecutors say Parnell knowingly shipped salmonella-tainted peanuts and doctored documents used to screen salmonella as the former owner of peanut corporation of America. Food company owners have been executed in China for safety violations, but Stewart Parnell’s sentence is believed to be the stiffest ever in the United States.
Parnell’s son-in-law who testified that the former CEO wanted to tell the truth for more than six years, but could not because of lawyers.
Before the judge issued the sentences, Stewart Parnell said; “This has been a seven-year nightmare for me and my family”.
Parnell invoked the Fifth Amendment when called to testify before Congress and had never publicly spoken about the tragedy until Monday, when he expressed remorse in the courtroom.
Ron Napier talked about his 80-year-old mother Nellie from Ohio, who died on January 26, 2009.
The sibling of a previous shelled nut organization official has been sentenced to 20 years in jail for his part in a unsafe salmonella episode.
Ron said he wanted to come and face Stewart and Michael Parnell, to make sure they heard about his mother’s painful death.
None of them were convicted for the deaths of people in the outbreak.
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“Our prosecution is just one more example of the forceful actions that the Department of Justice, with its agency partners, takes against any individual or company who compromises the safety of America’s food supply for financial gain”, said Acting Associate Attorney General Stuart Delery in statement after the sentence was announced.
