Comment by pessimizer

> A former corporate CEO has been sentenced to 28 years in prison for selling food that made people sick. Two other executives face jail time as well. These jail terms are by far the harshest sentences the U.S. authorities have handed down in connection with an outbreak of foodborne illness.

> The outbreak, in this case, happened seven years ago. More than 700 cases of salmonella poisoning were linked to contaminated peanut products. Nine people died.

> Investigators traced the contaminated food to a factory in Georgia operated by the Peanut Corporation of America.

> The outbreak, by itself, was not unprecedented. There have been bigger, and deadlier, outbreaks of foodborne illness.

> But the emails that investigators found at the Peanut Corporation of America set this case apart. Some of the emails came from the company's CEO, Stewart Parnell.

> "Stewart Parnell absolutely knew that they were shipping salmonella-tainted peanut butter. They knew it, and they covered it up," says Bill Marler, a food safety lawyer who represented some of the victims.

> Before and during the outbreak, company executives assured customers that their products were free of salmonella when no tests had been carried out.

> When tests did turn up salmonella, company executives sometimes just retested that batch, and when it came up clean, they sold it.

> In one memorable email exchange, when Parnell was told that a shipment was delayed because results of salmonella tests weren't yet available, he wrote back, "Just ship it."

https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/09/21/442335132/pe...

https://www.cdc.gov/salmonella/2009/peanut-butter-2008-2009....