Stewart Parnell, a former peanut executive convicted of knowingly shipping salmonella-tainted peanut butter, was sentenced today to 28 years in prison in what is believed to be the most severe punishment ever handed out to a producer in a food-borne illness case.
Parnell, 61, is the former owner of the Peanut Corporation of America. He was convicted by a federal jury in September of last year of shipping the tainted peanut butter from a plant in Blakely, Georgia, to food producer Kellogg and other companies. The salmonella outbreak that started in early 2009 killed nine people and sickened 714 people in 46 states, according to health officials.
Parnell faced a possible
803 years in prison.
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/peanut-exec-face-prison-sentence-803-years-salmonella/story?id=33920375
