All language subtitles for American Greed s11e11 From Peanuts to Sick Millions

In this episode of American Greed, CEO
Stuart Parnell starts with peanuts and

makes millions by cutting corners and
exploiting workers.

It doesn't run like a plantation.

Parnell's peanut butter goes to stores,
schools, hospitals, and U .S. troops.

But his factories are criminally dirty.

We were trying to seal up holes in the
wall to keep mice from coming in.

We found evidence of roaches, rats,
mice, beetles.

The filth breeds one of the biggest food
poisoning outbreaks in U .S. history.

Parnell knows the risk.

But raking in $30 million a year, he
instructs workers to just ship it. I'm

looking at him after seeing those emails
thinking, that's the devil right there.

That's the epitome of greed.

These pictures should be in the
dictionary next to the word greed.

Due to their willful and knowing
actions, they killed nine people.

This could end up being one of the
largest food recalls in U .S. history.

Recall comes after federal officials
confirmed salmonella contamination at a

Georgia facility.

And now the recall is being expanded to
include every item made from peanut

products at that plant in the past two
years.

Peanut butter.

It's a multi -billion dollar a year
industry and one of the most popular

on store shelves.

But in January 2009, it's deadly.

Peanut products are laced with the
salmonella bacteria.

It's sickening.

and even killing people from coast to
coast.

There's a race against time to trace the
source and stop what's turning into a

nationwide panic.

Food and Drug Administration is advising
Americans not to eat any products made

with peanut butter or peanut paste until
further notice. And that includes

cookies and cakes, ice cream, as well as
other foods containing peanut butter

made at this Georgia plant.

Food safety watchdog attorney Bill
Marler knows what this kind of

looks like.

I've been involved in every major and
many minor foodborne illness outbreaks

that have occurred in the United States
in the last 20 -plus years.

They're all tragic, but they all
appropriately freak people out.

By February 2009, Congress is demanding
answers from this man.

Stuart Parnell, President and CEO of
Peanut Corporation of America.

One of the things I'm going to do today
is ask Mr. Parnell from Peanut

Corporation of America if he'd like to
open this and sample some of the

that he didn't think were a problem in
sending out for the rest of us to eat.

Stuart Parnell has apparently lost his
appetite.

He declines the offer to taste the
products.

And with good reason.

Evidence is mounting that this was no
accident.

For two years, the operators of the
Georgia plant at the center of the

investigation may have knowingly sold
contaminated products.

Stuart Parnell's peanut empire is about
to come crashing down.

But it was never supposed to end this
way.

In the rolling hills of central
Virginia, peanuts are a major cash crop.

It's here that Hugh Parnell, Stewart's
father, stakes his claim with the tiny

company Parnell's Peanuts.

In 1977, Hugh overhauls a roasting
facility in Gorman, Texas, and

rechristens his namesake company as
Peanut Corporation of America.

By 1994, revenues soar to more than $20
million.

Hugh cashes out and retires.

But peanuts are a family tradition.

So in 2000, Stuart Parnell buys PCA.

Food safety advocate and ethics
professor Darren Detweiler says Stuart's

ambitions are bigger than his father's.
When Stuart Parnell took over the Peanut

Corporation of America, he radically
expanded the company, both in terms of

and the amount of profit that it was
making.

PCA expands to another plant in Blakely,
Georgia, and at its height, Stuart

Parnell triples revenue in just three
years.

He's on the move.

His brother Michael becomes PCA's number
one peanut broker.

His brother was now a buyer of product
for him, and it wasn't just peanuts.

Peanut powder or peanut dust that was
being used in a lot of different

And that's great business for him
because now he's able to use this

version of the product.

From ice cream to energy bars to frozen
Thai dinners to dog food,

PCA lands new clients throughout the
food supply chain.

But PCA is also hiding dirty little
secrets.

Shoddy sanitation, low -grade peanuts.

and the corporate culture built upon
intimidation, low wages, and

of workers.

In Texas, the management was run by a
handful of white guys, with

all the workers being Mexican
-Americans.

And in Georgia, it was run by a handful
of white guys, and all the workers were

African -American.

It was like, you know, a plantation.

It was run like a plantation.

And just like those bad old days, the
work is profitable for the man on top.

Parnell snaps up another company in
Plainview, Texas, and a roasting and

blanching company in Virginia, close to
his custom -built home on a five -acre

estate in Lynchburg.

Parnell runs his growing PCA dynasty
from a converted garage behind the

The Parnell brothers especially were
making a pretty good living.

Brokering and selling this product
around the United States.

PCA processes around 2 % of America's
peanuts.

Yet they supply product to more than 200
companies, including giants like

Kellogg's and General Mills.

PCA had a pretty broad business.

It had a nice little corner of the
market.

That 2 % was, you know, pretty valuable.

Schools, nursing homes, FEMA relief
kits.

Even America's troops overseas rely on
PCA.

Their products primarily went into then
other products, whether peanut butter

cookies or crackers. And they were these
big tins of peanut butter that

primarily went to hospitals and opal
combs. I think that tells you a lot

sort of how integrated our food system
is that you don't really even know who's

making your stuff.

So who's making sure the food is safe?

Federal food safety agencies are
mandated to monitor and inspect

But with limited resources, these
agencies depend on private companies to

their own operations.

Perhaps surprisingly, given the scandal
that will later emerge, Stuart Parnell

sits on the government's peanut standard
board.

The fox is guarding the hen house.

And the hen house is a filthy mess.

To maximize profits and to minimize
expenses, this peanut dust

and powder would sit there in the open,
uncovered.

And during that time, there was rat
infestation. They found holes in the

and water would gather and bird
droppings would get into the water. They

seep into this product.

And sometimes he literally had
employees.

sweep off some of the rat poop. This was
just business as usual, the idea of put

it out there.

Fortunately for the consumer, most major
food conglomerations, like Parnell's

biggest clients, want to make sure their
providers are meeting safety standards.

They require independent laboratory
testing.

So PCA hires several labs, including
Charles Dybels, to test its peanut

samples. Food manufacturers want to make
food.

They don't necessarily want to do all of
that in -house. It has to do with core

competencies. Their core competencies
are not to run laps. That's what we do.

Accurate testing takes anywhere from 28
hours to five days.

Dymo looks for several pathogens,
including the Salmonella bacterium,

cause vomiting, diarrhea, dehydration,
and in some cases, death.

At each stage of the process, you're
whittling that down to your target. And

then you finally get your target
organism by what we call a confirmation

It's the last step in the process where
we can say, yay or nay. This is

salmonella or this is not salmonella.

And if the results come back positive?

One positive takes precedence over
however many negatives you may have

that lot. You don't release it into
commerce.

Not only that, though, if the product
itself is contaminated, all the

that that product touched is now
contaminated.

When American Greed returns, PCA test
results are coming back positive for

salmonella. But that's an easy fix.

Stu Parnell had his quality assurance
manager literally take documents and use

liquid paper to cover up the date and
put a new date on it to satisfy food

companies that wanted to buy that
product.

By the mid -2000s, Stuart Parnell is
making big money in peanuts.

But Parnell is also turning a blind eye
to glaring sanitation problems at his

factories. And he runs roughshod over
food safety standards.

Some of the lots that they were shipping
out didn't even get tested. It was

economic to him, and he didn't care
about the consumer.

Parnell ships products out the door
before getting test results at least six

times between 2004 and 2006.

Even more troubling, some of the tests
that are being performed come back

positive for Salmonella.

And Salmonella is bad for business.

Stewart's brother is getting all these
deals put together and they need to feed

the system.

And, you know, they're getting contracts
with Kellogg. They're getting contracts

with a variety of other middlemen.
They're saying, give me, give me, give

give me, give me the peanut butter. Give
me the peanut chips.

And they couldn't keep up with the
orders because they kept getting

salmonella tests.

If he pulls the product, Parnell risks
plunging into a financial abyss of debt.

So he plays a dangerous game of Russian
roulette.

Here's how it works.

In any given vat of peanuts, salmonella
may exist only in isolated pockets.

Parnell exploits this fact.

They came up with this very intricate
scheme where they would take more

tests on a lot than they would normally
do it, and then they would send it out

to multiple different labs.

And some of the labs would come back
negative.

Some of them would come back positive.

A positive result would force any
ethical owner to dump the entire lot in

local landfill.

What they would do is they would get rid
of those test results and only use the

certificate analysis that said negative.

This cherry -picking of data works for a
while.

But then Parnell and his quality
assurance team abandon any pretense of

science.

They simply rewrite the bad test
results.

Eventually, they just started forging
the certificate of analysis to say they

were all negative.

And you wonder what the hell they were
thinking about. They don't bother

customers that test results come back
positive for salmonella.

And when customers like Bloomfield
Bakers learn from their own lab tests

the PCA peanuts they're using are
tainted, Well, Stewart's just as shocked

they are.

So when somebody was saying, hey, it
tested positive, it was like, oh, why

that do that?

On October 5, 2006, Stewart writes to
Bloomfield Baker's director of

I am dumbfounded.

In over 26 years of business, he says
he's not found any instances, even

of a salmonella problem.

Year after year, emails revealed the
real Stuart Parnell.

He complains that lab tests are breaking
me. When employees ask for critical

test equipment, Stuart says, only if we
will not get screwed.

This is costing us huge dollars.

Lie about the sales if it saves us
money.

The lies ensure a cushy existence.

He has a horse country estate.

And the avid outdoorsman hits the waves
in his powerboat.

Or heads skyward.

Parnell is a licensed pilot and owns a
two -seater Mooney M20.

He enjoys weekends at Oakwood Country
Club.

And an odd touch of luxury in his
otherwise dank Texas plant, a custom

tub to soothe away any frayed nerves.

Life is good for PCA's man in the big
chair.

Revenues are almost $30 million.

But one place the money isn't going is
factories.

The man owns an airplane, so obviously
he wasn't starving to that.

We wouldn't put any money into this
company, and we're always complaining

money. PCA hires Kenneth Kendrick in
July 2006 as an assistant plant manager

Plainview, Texas.

With a background in lab testing for the
meat industry, he should be an instant

asset. But it seemed like I'd stepped
back in time 50 years.

Something was always being welded and
patched back together, and you could

tell by looking at it, it was over
-equipment.

Their idea of a lab and quality control
on that was making sure the peanuts were

the right color.

It's even worse than he thinks.

Stuart Parnell hasn't registered his
Plainview plant with the Food and Drug

Administration.

The agency has no idea it even exists.

Kendrick's new job is off the grid.

He's working at a ghost factory.

Where were these problems? How were they
being hidden?

Well, it's hard to find those problems
if you don't even know that the facility

exists.

ironically, in Plainview, Texas.

Within weeks of taking the job, Kendrick
is appalled by what he finds.

We were trying to fill up holes in the
wall to keep mice from coming in.

I expected there would be, like, this
routine lab testing and these things in

place that, you know, were just
standard, and they just simply weren't

The safety of the food was never a
concern.

I got alarmed at the amount of positive
they were getting. We actually got on

the phone with the quality manager at
the time and said, hey, I'm available.

If you need help, you know, I'm
available.

And his answer was basically, I actually
like the positive because then maybe we

can force the owner to take action.

And I remember leaving that phone call
thinking, God, this company is cheap.

One of my favorite quotes from Parnell's
email is, we have a lady in Texas who's

good with the whiteout. So apparently
other people were just taking the next

closest sample somebody had done and
using that lab report and sending

it with the peanuts.

And when Kendrick offers to actually fix
the problems rather than just cover

them up, this is the response he gets
from Parnell.

So I called him and said, hey, I used to
work in a lab. I hear that you have

this problem. He goes, I have Hartford
insurance.

Don't worry about it. I need to get back
to work on other things.

In November 2006, Kendrick quits.

I'd been there four months. I thought
something bad was going to happen here.

You know, I knew something was going to
go bad at some point, and I just didn't

want to be part of it.

When American Greed returns.

Stuart Parnell's greed and corner
-cutting take a human toll.

Cancer couldn't claim her, but peanut
butter did.

Peanut Corporation of America is
knowingly shipping salmonella -laced

and they have been for years.

CEO Stuart Parnell's emails spelled out
his callous disregard for other people's

health. He writes, no test results?

Just ship it.

I'll hold my breath again.

Turn them loose.

They were operating outside industry
norms, and they willfully released

that was contaminated.

And they did it again and again and
again.

Former employee Kenneth Kendrick,
disturbed by what he's seen, goes into

whistleblower mode and sends anonymous
emails to health departments and food

companies warning them about PCA.

Unfortunately, his cries fall on deaf
ears.

I had sent anonymous emails to the Texas
Department of Health. Now, they denied

getting any from a Mr. Kendrick. Well, I
didn't send them under Mr.

Kendrick. I couldn't get the attention
of anyone.

That's, you know, your average Joe off
the street.

I never wanted to go in the press. I'm
not good at this. I don't like this.

There was no regulation.

No one cared.

Despite his frustration, or maybe
because of it, Kendrick has an uneasy

about PCA.

I somehow had a feeling. I was like, I'm
going to hear about this again someday.

Someday arrives in September 2008.

In mild cases, salmonella poisoning
causes painful abdominal cramps, fever,

vomiting, and diarrhea.

But if it enters the bloodstream,
salmonella can be deadly, especially for

very young and old.

The strain that we isolated from PCA was
salmonella typhimurium. This is an

organism that will kill.

The people that it has the most...

adverse effects on are what we call
immunocompromised, the elderly, infants,

small children, pregnant women.

By November 2008, those symptoms are
popping up in clusters.

At first, it's three states, then 12,
14, 28,

46.

U .S. Senator Amy Klobuchar serves
Minnesota, a state affected by the

The CDC and the FDA, everyone works
together on these kinds of things, and

sometimes the state health departments
discover something first, and it's

telling them. Half the people who fell
sick fell sick before there was even any

kind of consumer awareness or notice.

That December in Perham, Minnesota, Jeff
Allmer's mother Shirley is a living

miracle. In two years' time, she's
beaten lung cancer, then brain cancer.

But she's still weak, and minor
dehydration lands her in a rehab center

regain strength.

Doctors say not to worry, she'll be home
by Christmas.

She seemed to be having a better
appetite and eating, and, you know, she

particularly liked chicken and peanut
butter toast.

It was a good thing that she ate those
things.

But on December 21st, instead of
planning a cancer -free Christmas with

mom, Shirley's children get shocking
news.

The doctors recommended that all the
family get up to the hospital to see her

because they didn't expect her to last
that day.

Shirley Allmer dies late that evening.

Doctors think pneumonia is the culprit,
but the medical examiner has a different

conclusion.

It came out in her autopsy.

or the death certificate that she had
sepsis.

And sepsis is blood poisoning,
basically.

And we thought that was odd.

Weeks later, Jeff happens upon something
else.

I was reading an Associated Press report
that casually mentioned a 72 -year -old

northern Minnesota woman died from
salmonella poisoning.

My mom's 72.

She's up in northern Minnesota, and she
had blood poisoning.

A call to the Minnesota Health
Department leaves Jeff's family stunned.

They said, I'm sorry you have to hear it
this way, but that's your mother

they're reporting on.

Cancer couldn't claim her, but peanut
butter did.

In Portland, Oregon, on January 3, 2009,
three -year -old Jacob Hurley's parents

think he might have the flu.

He's listless, throwing up, feverish,
and miserable.

When one of your children is sick,
you're scared for them, and you feel a

bit helpless.

There's blood in his diarrhea.

So we go to the pediatrician, but the
whole time, all it is is just treat it

like the flu. If there's anything that
he likes and can keep down, go ahead and

feed it to him. In Jacob's case, that
ultimate comfort food isn't ice cream or

popsicles. It's peanut butter crackers.

Then we get a phone call from the
doctor's office saying that he tested

for salmonella poisoning.

So the doctor just said, keep doing what
you're doing, and you can feed him

whatever he likes.

Jacob's parents have no reason to think
the crackers are poisoning their little

boy, so he continues to eat them.

He was sick for a full week, pushing 10
days.

The doctor didn't know what the source
was.

Nobody knew what the source was.

In January 2009, local health
authorities and the Centers for Disease

used DNA testing to positively identify
the culprit, PCA peanuts.

The fact that the DNA was so unique and
100

% match between the peanut butter
cracker sample, unadulterated, that we

from our house.

had an exact match to the DNA salmonella
in Jake's stool.

For the federal government, that was the
smoking gun.

After two weeks, Jacob Hurley fully
recovers. But the experience forever

his parents' perspective.

You start to get an inkling that this is
just the tip of the iceberg.

And then you realize that, how lucky we
were.

PCA peanuts will claim the lives of nine
victims in five states.

For U .S. Senators Amy Klobuchar and Al
Franken of Minnesota, the outbreak hits

especially close to home.

Three of the nine people that died
because of the contaminated peanut

were in my state. In the case of Shirley
Allmer, the grandma, 72 -year -old

grandma who died, she was surviving
cancer and had no warning.

We just didn't have in place the
mechanisms for tracing back to where

this came from.

That's what was so tragic about Jeff's
mom, which is that she had some peanut

butter from a jar that had been on the
shelves for months.

When American Greed returns,

Stuart Parnell comes face to face with
his victims and the congressional

firestorm. So the food poisoning of
people, is that just the cost of doing

business for your company?

By the time the CDC identifies Peanut
Corporation of America as the source of

the salmonella outbreak, its products
have already been distributed, sold, and

sometimes eaten.

Everything is on such a lag, such a
delay.

So you just never knew where it was
going to end at that point.

Retailers scramble to pull anything with
possible PCA products off their

shelves.

And with the modern food supply chain so
interconnected, the list grows longer

every day.

When you start seeing the news reports
of things that you never even thought

like dog food that had peanut butter in
them, this affected.

Everybody. One -time PCA employee
Kenneth Kendrick watches in horror.

So far, officials don't even know about
PCA's Plainview facility.

Texas is still operating full tilt, and
there was even a shelter in Virginia

still operating full tilt.

I'm sending emails, getting generic
responses, and I'm starting to get kind

of very frustrated at this point. Hey,
is nobody still looking at Texas? What

going on here?

Kendrick finally gets the attention of
the FDA.

He knows all the dirty little secrets
and draws maps for the investigators.

I need you to take ten steps. Take a
left, open this door, and go upstairs.

If you go upstairs, you're going to see
a false ceiling. You're going to find

dead rats.

Civil attorney Ron Simon tours the
Georgia plant and shares his findings

reporters. We found evidence of roaches,
rats, mice.

Beetle, we even found in one instance,
broken wire in the peanut paste.

Meanwhile, during a 2009 interview with
the Virginia TV station,

Stuart Parnell's sister, Beth Falwell,
insists that PCA plants are just fine

and says Parnell's critics simply don't
have a head for business.

They're throwing slanders at him.
They're saying he's done these things.

people would stop and think, why would
we have some filthy building?

doing work for Kellogg.

People that have never been in business
don't know. They know nothing about what

it takes to run a business.

Stuart Parnell is about to have the
worst month of his life so far.

On Monday, February 9, 2009, the FBI
raids PCA's Lynchburg, Virginia

headquarters, located in Stuart
Parnell's garage.

They also raid the Blakely, Georgia
plant.

Two days later, Parnell and PCA take the
blame at a congressional hearing on the

outbreak. Lives were lost and people
were sickened because they took a

and I believe knowingly, shipping
product that was contaminated.

The hearing reveals bombshell after
bombshell.

Parnell's emails are damning.

And I'm looking at him, having after
seeing those emails, thinking, that's

devil right there.

That's the epitome of greed.

His picture should be in the dictionary
next to the word greed.

Peter Hurley testifies.

People have died due to PCA's willful
negligence.

And while he doesn't speak, just seeing
the face of three -year -old survivor

Jacob Hurley.

drives home what's really at stake.

Oregon House Representative Greg Walden
knows all about Jacob, and he's

outraged. One of the things I'm going to
do today is ask Mr. Parnell from Peanut

Corporation of America if he'd like to
open this and sample some of the

that he didn't think were a problem in
sending out for the rest of us to eat.

Parnell pleads the fifth five times.

Mr. Chairman and members of the
committee, on the advice of my counsel,

respectfully decline to answer your
question based on the protection

under the United States Constitution.

He was going to hide behind the Fifth
Amendment, which he had a constitutional

right to do, and I knew that.

But to me, it was the question of the
moment. It was, you didn't seem to think

it was a problem to cut it loose because
you were worried about your money.

and let people see how it plays in the
marketplace.

And it didn't play well. It killed, it
sickened, it robbed people of their

futures and their family members, and it
was wrong.

Four days after the public excoriation,
on February 13, 2009,

PCA files for bankruptcy.

They were obviously facing these illness
claims, but also all the recall cost

claims. PCA didn't have recall
insurance.

There was nothing there.

So they just went.

The recall hits food suppliers hard.

An estimated $200 million in short -term
losses.

The human toll hits harder.

There's not a day that goes by that I
don't think about my mom and I don't

about the circumstances.

My mom died and she shouldn't have died.

Could have been prevented.

By April 2009, the outbreak is over.

While the CDC's official toll lists 714
people in 46 states sickened,

they estimate dozens more victims for
every one illness reported.

But the true toll could be as high as 20
,000.

At least nine are dead.

I couldn't sleep at night knowing I let
more people die.

And I sometimes still cry at night for
the nine who did, that I wasn't able to

stop that back when I worked there.

and replay in my head a million
different ways.

Who else could I have tried to contact?

Darren Detweiler knows what that loss
feels like. In 1993, his 16 -month -old

son Riley was the last to die from an E.
coli outbreak that started with Jack in

the Box hamburgers.

There were no state or federal charges
brought against Jack in the Box at the

time, but they admitted that they broke
the law.

And you've got to really start to
wonder, what is the prosecutorial

when it comes to the food industry? How
can Stuart Parnell, who technically was

responsible for more deaths than Charles
Manson, not be held responsible, not be

tried in a federal court and not serve
jail time?

Next, will CEO Stuart Parnell get a
legal slap on the wrist?

or serve real time for his poisoned
peanuts.

PCA's salmonella -tainted products cause
the largest food recall in U .S.

history.

There's a breathtaking financial
fallout.

The loss estimates grow to a whopping $1
billion.

In the aftermath, PCA CEO Stuart Parnell
is at the center of a firestorm of

civil cases.

But he isn't facing criminal charges
yet.

In 2009, they announced there was a
criminal investigation.

And for years, literally, that's all we
knew.

Minnesota Senator Al Franken champions
food safety reform.

and advocates for PCA victims like Jeff
Ulmer.

These guys knew what was going on.

Due to their willful and knowing
actions, they killed nine people.

Jeff deserves a lot of credit for not
letting go. He was crucial to

the case in working with the
prosecutors.

Former U .S. Attorney Michael Moore must
maintain a balancing act.

On one hand, this case is about the
victims.

You had folks who lost parents.

You had people who lost family members
they loved.

You had folks who had children that were
sickened because of the outbreak that

we thought about on a daily basis.

On the other hand, the prosecution
requires cold, hard facts.

The judge is not going to let you talk
about your mother suffering and dying

because of tainted peanut product in a
case that deals with whether or not

somebody committed fraud by mail or
wire.

Meanwhile, the PCA outbreak goads
Congress into action.

On January 4, 2011, President Barack
Obama signs the Food Safety

Act into law.

It's predicated on best practices that
can be scientifically proven and that we

step up the inspections and have better
flow and transparency and more

information available to the inspectors
because all of those things played a

role in what went wrong with PCA.

It's the most sweeping set of food
reforms in seven decades.

You've gotten a lot bigger since the
last time I saw you. How you been?

Good. Good to see you. You hungry? I'm
still happy.

Congressman Greg Walden keeps PCA's
crime -taped peanut products in his

as a reminder.

You know, you think about somebody
willing to take that risk. One people's

are literally on the ballot.

It's truly a thick mind that's doing it.
It's our job.

is to be that voice for people who feel
they have no voice.

This was clearly a bipartisan piece of
work that we did, and we need to.

When American Greed returns, changing
the law is a good start, but Parnell's

victims want to make sure he sees the
inside of a jail cell.

This was a message, a clear message,
that you can't just pay a fine and

walk away.

Four years after the PCA Salmonella
outbreak, Prosecutor Michael Moore and

team meticulously combed through three
million pieces of evidence.

These cases are complex. They take a lot
of time. They take a lot of resources.

At the same time, the cases are such a
magnitude that you want to make sure

it gets the attention it deserves.

Moore must tie it all back to one big
theme.

People have lost their lives.

And, you know, children have suffered a
great deal through illness. And it just

reminds you that the case is not just
about Mr. Parnell, but this case is

people.

In February 2013, a grand jury issues a
76 -count indictment against

Stuart Parnell, Michael Parnell, and
three of their plant managers.

The charges don't include murder.

People understand lying, cheating, and
stealing.

And that's what this case ultimately was
about.

And we knew we could get justice for the
victims in the same way, even though we

were calling the case a wire fraud and
mail fraud case, conspiracy case, as

opposed to moving forward on some type
of manslaughter. But there's just no

reason to put family members through
that.

Darren Detweiler writes academic
articles about the case and lands an

with Stuart Parnell.

And he literally ends the conversation
with, you know, we should get together

and maybe have a burger and a beer or
something after this all blows over.

But it's not going to blow over.

In the summer of 2014, Parnell's
attorneys claim he had no idea what his

employees were up to and that attention
deficit disorder causes him to make

terrible decisions.

The emails told a totally different
story.

He knew exactly what was going on.

And what happened in that plant was
happening at his control and his

On September 19, 2014, the verdict comes
down for Stuart Parnell.

Guilty on 71 counts of conspiracy,
fraud, and misbranded food.

Jeff Allmer, the Hurleys, and other
victims are all back in Albany, Georgia

the sentencing a year later.

I sat there in the courtroom that
morning.

Not knowing what the outcome was going
to be. Is it going to be a slap on the

hand three months?

Is it going to be life in prison?

One by one, PCA victims share impact
statements.

As they leave the stand, they walk past
Stewart's family.

And according to Detweiler, they face an
appalling parting shot from a Parnell

family member.

You could not miss it. She was flipping
them the bird.

And the federal marshal...

basically takes a few steps over,
reaches over, and grabs this woman and

basically pulls her from her seat and
hauls her out towards the back of the

courtroom. And it was Beth Falwell, the
sister of Stuart Parnell.

Parnell's underlings cooperate without
the drama.

Three former plant managers plead guilty
to obstruction of justice and fraud.

They are sentenced to three, five, and
six years in prison.

Michael Parnell is sentenced to 20
years.

Stuart Parnell doesn't realize he's
about to make history as a defendant in

food poisoning case.

His sentence, 28 years.

This was a landmark case.

You know, you go from three months as
the maximum potential jail time to 28

years. When those numbers were read out
by the judge that evening, there was a

gasp.

Stuart Parnell could spend the rest of
his life behind bars, but he's still

alive.

The sentence can't bring Jeff Ormer's
mother back.

I heard an ad on the radio for Mother's
Day, and it came to my mind that I

should send a Mother's Day card, and I'm
going to send it to the person that put

her in the ground.

And I simply wrote in there,

I didn't know where to send it this year
since my mother's no longer alive, so

I'm sending it to you, the person
responsible for where she is today.

And then I signed it.

I know what you did.

You know what you did.

I'm not walking away from this.

While Parnell appeals his case,
advocates say the Food Safety

requires more funding to give it the
teeth legislators intended.

Red tape.

Mindless regulation.

Hurting our economy, killing jobs.

Well, yeah, there's another side to
that. And the other side of that is that

it prevents stuff from happening that
actually hurts our economy, that

hurts the lives.

We didn't lose Jake.

And that made me realize how lucky we
are and how I can...

Talk to members of Congress.

I'm happy. I'm healthy. I have a happy
and healthy son.

From the person that's in prison and the
president in the White House, everybody

eats. Every food producer should at
least do their part of what they know to

right, to give us good, safe food. And
Stuart Parnell didn't do any

of that. I love you, buddy. I love you,
too.

Next. When money is no object, the limit
of the credit card was the only thing

that stopped them. The object was to get
more.

It was just boom, boom, boom, boom,
boom. Five rounds from the last 45.

Enter the dark side.

American Greed next on CNBC.