Techno Blender
Digitally Yours.

Former Blue Bell CEO Pleads Guilty to Misdemeanor Over Listeria Outbreak

0 48



U.S. prosecutors are dropping felony fraud charges they brought against a former chief executive of ice cream maker Blue Bell Creameries LP in the wake of a 2015 listeria outbreak that led to three deaths.  

As part of a settlement reached Wednesday,

Paul Kruse,

Blue Bell’s CEO from 2004 until 2017, will plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge over food safety violations. He will pay a $100,000 fine and avoid jail time, according to a plea agreement filed in federal court in Austin, Texas.

Mr. Kruse had been facing seven counts of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud that the Justice Department filed against him in May 2020. The charges carried a prison sentence of up to 20 years.

“The settlement confirms what Mr. Kruse has been saying from the very beginning, no one at Blue Bell ever intended to defraud its customers, and we are happy that the government has reached the same conclusion,” Mr. Kruse’s lawyer, Chris Flood, said in a statement on Wednesday.

A trial in Austin last year in which Mr. Kruse faced the Justice Department’s felony charges resulted in a hung jury. Prosecutors alleged he tried to hide what Blue Bell knew about the listeria outbreak and directed company employees to recall potentially contaminated inventory without telling grocers or consumers why.

The Justice Department didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. A representative of Blue Bell on Wednesday said the company hoped the plea agreement between Mr. Kruse and the government would bring closure to a difficult situation.

The company pleaded guilty in 2020 to two misdemeanor charges related to shipments of contaminated ice cream and agreed to pay $19.35 million in fines.

“Blue Bell has learned from this chapter in our company’s history, and food safety will continue to be our highest priority,” the representative said.

The Justice Department’s consumer-protection branch, which brought the charges against Mr. Kruse, is also investigating an

Abbott Laboratories

infant-formula plant in Sturgis, Mich. The plant’s shutdown last year contributed to a nationwide formula shortage.

The Justice Department since 2015 has sought to step up prosecutions of corporate executives and employees for company misdeeds, in response to longstanding criticism of its handling of conduct on Wall Street that led to the 2008 financial crisis. 

The effort has produced more cases against individuals for corporate crimes, but also some high-profile losses, with defendants accusing prosecutors of co-opting their employers to help build cases in ways that could infringe upon their constitutional right against self-incrimination.

Write to Dylan Tokar at [email protected]

Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

Appeared in the March 9, 2023, print edition as ‘Former Blue Bell CEO Pleads Guilty to a Misdemeanor.’



U.S. prosecutors are dropping felony fraud charges they brought against a former chief executive of ice cream maker Blue Bell Creameries LP in the wake of a 2015 listeria outbreak that led to three deaths.  

As part of a settlement reached Wednesday,

Paul Kruse,

Blue Bell’s CEO from 2004 until 2017, will plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge over food safety violations. He will pay a $100,000 fine and avoid jail time, according to a plea agreement filed in federal court in Austin, Texas.

Mr. Kruse had been facing seven counts of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud that the Justice Department filed against him in May 2020. The charges carried a prison sentence of up to 20 years.

“The settlement confirms what Mr. Kruse has been saying from the very beginning, no one at Blue Bell ever intended to defraud its customers, and we are happy that the government has reached the same conclusion,” Mr. Kruse’s lawyer, Chris Flood, said in a statement on Wednesday.

A trial in Austin last year in which Mr. Kruse faced the Justice Department’s felony charges resulted in a hung jury. Prosecutors alleged he tried to hide what Blue Bell knew about the listeria outbreak and directed company employees to recall potentially contaminated inventory without telling grocers or consumers why.

The Justice Department didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. A representative of Blue Bell on Wednesday said the company hoped the plea agreement between Mr. Kruse and the government would bring closure to a difficult situation.

The company pleaded guilty in 2020 to two misdemeanor charges related to shipments of contaminated ice cream and agreed to pay $19.35 million in fines.

“Blue Bell has learned from this chapter in our company’s history, and food safety will continue to be our highest priority,” the representative said.

The Justice Department’s consumer-protection branch, which brought the charges against Mr. Kruse, is also investigating an

Abbott Laboratories

infant-formula plant in Sturgis, Mich. The plant’s shutdown last year contributed to a nationwide formula shortage.

The Justice Department since 2015 has sought to step up prosecutions of corporate executives and employees for company misdeeds, in response to longstanding criticism of its handling of conduct on Wall Street that led to the 2008 financial crisis. 

The effort has produced more cases against individuals for corporate crimes, but also some high-profile losses, with defendants accusing prosecutors of co-opting their employers to help build cases in ways that could infringe upon their constitutional right against self-incrimination.

Write to Dylan Tokar at [email protected]

Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

Appeared in the March 9, 2023, print edition as ‘Former Blue Bell CEO Pleads Guilty to a Misdemeanor.’

FOLLOW US ON GOOGLE NEWS

Read original article here

Denial of responsibility! Techno Blender is an automatic aggregator of the all world’s media. In each content, the hyperlink to the primary source is specified. All trademarks belong to their rightful owners, all materials to their authors. If you are the owner of the content and do not want us to publish your materials, please contact us by email – [email protected]. The content will be deleted within 24 hours.

Leave a comment