60 Criminal Counts Filed in Jalisco Cheese Epidemic
Jalisco Mexican Products Inc. and its president were charged Thursday with 60 misdemeanor criminal violations of state agriculture, health and safety laws after an investigation into a tainted cheese epidemic that last year killed as many as 40 people.
Another executive of the cheese company pleaded no contest to 12 of the 60 misdemeanor counts as part of a plea bargain.
“I’m sorry,” Jose Luis Medina, 45, a vice president of the company and the “cheese maker” at the now-closed Artesia plant, told reporters after entering his plea in Los Angeles County Municipal Court in Bellflower. “I don’t know what happened.”
Under a negotiated plea, Medina, the only licensed pasteurizer in the cheese plant, faces a maximum possible sentence of one year in jail and a $12,000 fine for his part in the largest food-poisoning epidemic in California history, one that still baffles scientific investigators.
Arraignment for Gary McPherson, Jalisco’s president and principal owner, and the company is scheduled April 9.
McPherson’s attorney, Roger Rosen, said Thursday no decision has been made whether his client will fight the charges or accept a plea bargain.
The cases against Medina, McPherson and the company are expected to resolve the criminal investigation into the listeriosis epidemic that broke out last April and claimed, according to different studies, between 20 and 40 victims, the majority of whom were infants. The epidemic hit especially hard at the Latino community, which favored the soft Mexican-style cheeses produced by Jalisco.
“This is an important way of sending a message to the food manufacturers of California that they may be criminally liable for adulterated food,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Thomas Papageorge. “If it’s not the first (criminal prosecution of food manufacturers), it’s at the cutting edge of this kind of prosecution.”
Early in their investigation, prosecutors had said that felony involuntary manslaughter charges could result from the probe. At a news conference, Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner produced records that he said showed that the amount of raw milk received at the Jalisco plant between April 1 and June 12 far exceeded the capacity of the firm’s pasteurization machinery for that period. Prosecutors also asserted that it appeared that some Jalisco files and records had been destroyed.
However, on Thursday, Papageorge and co-prosecutor, Deputy Dist. Atty. Clifford Klein, said that nine months of investigation, interviews and scientific testing determined that felony charges were not appropriate.
Experts are still mystified as to how the fatal bacteria called Listeria monocytogenes found its way into some of the cheese products of Jalisco. The bacterial strain was identified more than half a century ago, but little is yet known about it.
No ‘Complete Consensus’
“The reality to this day is that no one is precisely certain” how Jalisco products became contaminated, Papageorge said. “Scientific experts have not reached a complete consensus. The leading hypothesis is that unpasteurized milk found its way into the cheese-making process.”
The charges against Medina “represent the key of what we think happened,” Papageorge said. Ten counts allege the manufacture and sale of adulterated food, one count alleges the operation of an unsanitary food processing establishment, and one count alleges that solution lines and water lines were improperly connected to the milk and milk product lines during the processing periods.
The charges against McPherson and Jalisco suggest broader problems at the plant: 19 counts for the production and sale of adulterated food; 19 counts for sale and delivery of adulterated milk products; nine counts of making and selling cheese with cottonseed oil, an illegal ingredient; five counts for possession of unpasteurized cheese, and eight counts for assorted violations of agricultural, health and safety codes.
“If all the codes had been followed, this wouldn’t have happened,” Klein said.
A charge of involuntary manslaughter would have required both that the defendants knew that raw, unpasteurized milk was entering the cheese and that the listeria bacteria was in the raw milk, but neither have been proved, prosecutors said.
Destruction of Files
Contrary to earlier suspicions, investigators “found no evidence that suggest the conscious or intentional destruction of files,” Papageorge said. Moreover, it was found that the speed of Jalisco’s pasteurizer could be accelerated to handle the volume of milk received by the dairy.
However, a dairy is required by law to notify state authorities when it alters the speed of its pasteurizer. Prosecutors said Jalisco did not do so.
Medina’s attorney, Kenneth Sabo, said his client supervised operations of the plant, while McPherson largely handled administrative and financial chores.
Medina, a 45-year-old Mexican National, referred most questions to Sabo. “This was a very tragic thing for the general public,” Sabo said. “We know what happened, but we don’t know why it happened or how it happened.”
Sabo said Medina had agreed to the plea bargain because “it’s time to put his life back together . . . time for his family to put their life back together.” Medina’s wife and son attended the hearing.
Received High Marks
Sabo suggested that some of the charges were unjustified. For example, although prosecutors alleged unsanitary conditions, the company had received high marks in state inspections shortly before the listeriosis outbreak. As for whether the solution and water lines were improperly connected, “our contention is that it’s possible, but highly unlikely,” Sabo said.
The first signals that a major listeriosis epidemic was wracking Los Angeles County were picked up by county health officials in April, 1985.
The Jalisco case represented the worst food-poisoning epidemic in California history, state health officials said. According to the latest figures complied by Florence Morrison, statistical chief of the infectious disease branch of the state Department of Health Services, 103 cases of Jalisco cheese poisoning were documented statewide between January and July of last year. Of these cases, 40 individuals died as a direct result of eating the contaminated cheese; 38 deaths involved infants, she said.
Lower Fatality Count
But the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta has a much lower fatality count due to a more detailed examination of the type of listeria bacteria found in Jalisco victims, said R. Michael Linnan, an epidemiologist at the federal complex. According to their study, 20 deaths were generated in California by the Jalisco cheese contamination case, he said.
Jalisco itself was padlocked last June 13 amid the criminal investigation and soon went out of business. At the same time, the federal Food and Drug Administration was conducting its own inquiry and, as a result of the contamination, ordered a national survey of all soft cheese manufacturers.
At the same time, the Centers for Disease Control was charging that the deadly listeria bacteria was present in some of the dairy herds that supplied Jalisco--a contention that the federal agency could never prove.
By July 25, Dr. Shirley Fannin, associate director of communicable disease control for Los Angeles County, had declared that the epidemic had run its course, mainly among Latinos.
Still a Mystery
Throughout the intensive investigation, McPherson, the 44-year-old Jalisco chief executive, maintained that he had no idea of how the epidemic could have been triggered.
“Listeria, that was a new word for me, as I think it was for most people in California,” he told The Times last September.
Finally, on Dec. 6, all the agencies that had investigated the Jalisco case met in Sacramento and officials later told reporters that their “best hypothesis” was that the cheese contamination was caused by unpasteurized milk slipping into Jalisco’s cheese products.
Besides the criminal cases, Medina, McPherson and Jalisco are named in numerous pending personal injury and wrongful death suits. Under law, Medina’s no-contest plea will not affect his defense in the civil actions.
The district attorney’s office on Thursday also filed a civil suit against Jalisco seeking payment for the the cost of the investigation, and an injunction to assure against a reoccurance of unsafe practices should the company or its officers return to the dairy business.
Times staff writer Ronald L. Soble contributed to this story.
