Shortly after the salmonella outbreak spread across the country in early 2009 and killed nine people, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution investigation revealed that as far back as 2007, Peanut Corp. of America’s Blakely, Ga. plant had shipped tainted products, even after tests showed contamination. The AJC has since followed the aftermath — from how the victims are coping to how the outbreak spurred a series of tougher inspection procedures. The AJC will continue following this story.
How it unfolded
A Georgia peanut processor is linked to nine deaths, but the aftermath includes tougher food safety laws
Jan. 14, 2009 A salmonella outbreak is for the first time traced to a Blakely, Ga. processing plant owned by Peanut Corp. of America.
Jan. 26, 2009 State inspection reports obtained by the AJC show the processing plant had a history of serious health.
Feb. 11, 2009 Peanut Corp. President Stewart Parnell and Sammy Lightsey, manager of the South Georgia plant, refuse to answer questions from a U.S. House panel investigating the salmonella outbreak, invoking their Fifth Amendment right not to present self-incriminating evidence.
Feb. 13, 2009 Peanut Corp. files for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in Lynchburg, Va.
March 10, 2009 State food safety officials implemented the first-ever guidelines for inspections of peanut processing plants in Georgia
Jan. 30, 2010 It is announced that about 120 victims of the salmonella outbreak will split $12 million as part of a settlement with the insurer of Peanut Corp.
Jan. 4, 2011 President Obama signs a food safety bill that gives the federal government new powers, including ordering — instead of suggesting — food recalls. Hysteria over the salmonella outbreak helped pushed the bill through Congress.
Feb. 21, 2011 Federal investigators announce criminal indictments against five Peanut Corp. employee for their roles in willfully selling tainted products and falsifying documents to cover it up.
Facing indictment
Federal investigators unsealed a criminal indictment against five Peanut Corp. of America employees for their actions before and after the 2009 salmonella outbreak.
Stewart Parnell was an owner and president of Peanut Corp. He was charged with conspiracy and fraud for knowingly shipping tainted food.
Michael Parnell was a food broker who worked on behalf of Peanut Corp. He was charged with conspiracy and fraud for knowingly shipping tainted food.
Samuel Lightsey managed the Blakely plant from July 2008-February 2009. He was charged with conspiracy and fraud for knowingly shipping tainted food.
Daniel Kilgore was operations manager at the Blakely plant from June 2002-May 2008. He was charged with conspiracy and fraud for knowingly shipping tainted food.
Mary Wilkerson was quality assurance manager at the Blakely plant. She was chared with obstruction of justice.
The south Georgia peanut company knew its products were tainted with salmonella but sold them anyway, federal officials say. And, they say, when investigators tracked a 2009 salmonella outbreak that killed nine and sickened more than 700 in 42 states to the Peanut Corporation of America plant, company officials lied.
On Thursday, four years after one of the biggest food-borne illness outbreaks in the nation’s history, prosecutors unveiled a 76-page federal indictment charging the head of the company and four others with fraud, conspiracy, obstruction of justice.
The indictments brought some solace to the victims of a food safety crisis that created panic across the country as it swept peanut products from store shelves, vending machines and household cupboards. Even as it created a dark moment for the large peanut industry in Georgia, it placed a harsh spotlight on shortcomings in both state and federal oversight over such food-producing plants.
Those charged on Thursday include Stewart Parnell, 58, of Lynchburg, Va., president of Peanut Corp. of America; Samuel Lightsey, 48, of Blakely, an operations manager at the plant in Blakely; and Mary Wilkerson, 39, of Edison Ga., who held various positions at the plant including receptionist, office manager and quality assurance manager.
Also charged was Michael Parnell, 54, of Midlothian, Va., who worked at P.P. Sales, a food broker who worked on behalf of the peanut company.
Also Thursday, prosecutors released information on Daniel Kilgore, 44, of Blakely, a plant operations manager who has already pleaded guilty to fraud, conspiracy and the introduction of adulterated food into interstate commerce.
Stewart and Michael Parnell and Lightsey were charged with introducing adulterated and misbranded food into interstate commerce, conspiracy and fraud. Stewart Parnell, Lightsey and Wilkerson were charged with obstruction of justice.
Stewart Parnell will surrender himself to authorities next week, said his attorney, Bill Gust.
“Stewart intends to defend himself vigorously against these charges,” Gust said. He said Parnell never intentionally shipped any tainted product.
Lightsey’s attorney, Jim Parkman, said Lightsey was on at the company a few months and that he never knowingly shipped any food that was harmful to people.
The other two who were charged could not be reached for comment.
For the victims, Thursday’s charges came after a long wait for justice, which some feared would never arrive.
Four years after peanut butter crackers almost killed him, Claude Ivester, 78, still has digestion problems and feels weakened by several days in the ICU. But Ivester took a measure of solace when the charges were announced.
“I come close to dying,” said Ivester, who lives in Elbert County in northeast Georgia. “If I could arrest him, I would.”
Ivester reached a financial settlement for an undisclosed amount. But he remains angry at Stewart Parnell.
“All those rotten peanuts,” he said. “I just felt he was a dirty rotten man.”
Gabrielle Meunier, a Vermont mother whose 7-year-old son Christopher was hospitalized for a week after he was poisoned by salmonella, said she was delighted by the news.
“I thought so many times that this case would just be dropped,” she said. “I don’t know why it took so long, but they must have built their case slowly and well. And I just have to say, ‘Bravo.’ ”
Shortly after the salmonella outbreak spread across the country in early 2009, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution investigation revealed that as far back as 2007, the plant had shipped tainted products, even after tests showed contamination.
The AJC also uncovered that the plant had a history of sanitation problems that included grease and dirt buildup, unmarked chemical containers and gaps in doors large enough for rodents.
The south Georgia plant was macabre by food-safety standards. Inspectors and investigators found roaches, rats, mildew, and dirt and grease built up under a leaking roof. A work force of about 50 was pressured to turn up the production volume, turning out thousands of gallons of peanut paste a day.
After the outbreak, federal investigators swooped down on the plant, shut it down, and seized records. They later released an email from Stewart Parnell instructing a manager to ship contaminated products.
“Turn them loose,” he wrote in one email released by investigators.
Prosecutors say Stewart Parnell, Michael Parnell, Lightsey and Kilgore participated in a scheme to manufacture and ship salmonella-contaminated peanuts and peanut products. The company even fabricated shipping certificates that said unsafe products were fine. Customers ranged in size from small, family-owned businesses to global, multibillion-dollar food companies, prosecutors said. “The Department of Justice will not hesitate to pursue any person whose criminal conduct risks the safety of Americans who have done nothing more than eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich,” said Stuart F. Delery, who heads the Justice Department’s Civil Division.
According to the indictment, when Food and Drug Administration inspectors visited the Blakely plant in 2009 in the middle of the outbreak, they “asked specific questions about the plant, its operations, and its history, and, in several instances, Stewart Parnell, Lightsey and Wilkerson gave untrue or misleading answers to these questions.”
Seattle attorney William Marler, who has litigated scores of food-born illness cases and represented many of the victims of the Peanut Corporation of America outbreak, said Thursday’s indictment is a huge moment for food safety in the country.
“I’ve been doing these cases for twenty years and this is only the second time I’ve seen criminal charges levied,” he said. “To get criminal charges you have to show they knew the product was tainted.”
Prosecutions in tainted food cases generally lead to fines against companies. But U.S. Attorney Michael Moore said the four defendants could face decades in prison. He said the “complex and extensive” nature of the investigation didn’t yield quick results.
“Unfortunately and as alleged in the indictment, these defendants cared less about the quality of the food they were providing to the American people and more about the quantity of money they were gathering while disregarding food safety,” he said.
Food safety watchdogs said they were encouraged by the federal indictments.
“I think for the FDA to be credible, they had to do something like this and send a message to the food industry that this is not an acceptable practice,” said Mike Doyle, a University of Georgia food safety scientist.
The outbreak fanned fear across the country and cost the industry, by one estimate, about $250 million in sales. Almost 3,500 products were recalled by companies that bought processed peanut products from the Blakely plant, including millions of Kellogg’s Austin and Keebler peanut butter sandwich crackers.
Peanut Corp. produced not only peanut butter, but peanut paste, an ingredient found in foods from granola bars and dog biscuits to ice cream and cake.
Peanut Company of America filed bankruptcy, leaving a $12 million insurance policy to be divvied up by about 120 who filed lawsuits, including the families of those who died.
The roughly 120 plaintiffs were to receive between $20,000 and $2 million each. The settlements in the wrongful death cases ranged from $200,000 to about $1 million, the Star-Tribune of Minneapolis reported.
Don Koehler, executive director of the Georgia Peanut Commission, said the outbreak hit the states $3.5 billion peanut industry’s image harder than it hit its bottom line. “But I think this indictment will reassure people that when you put people in harms way you’re going to be held accountable,” he said Thursday.
Billy Fleming, publisher of the Early County News in Blakely, said three peanut processing plants still operate in the town of about 5,000 that has a monument on the town square declaring Blakely the Peanut Capital of the World.
“It gave us a black eye for a while,” he said, and was inspiration for an annual Peanut Proud Festival which will celebrated its 5th anniversary March 23. “That’s been the good thing to come out of all of this.”
About the Author
