Jalisco’s President Draws 30 Days in Jail, $18,800 Fine

The president and principal owner of the now-defunct Jalisco Mexican Products Inc. was sentenced Thursday to 30 days in jail and fined $18,800 for violations of the state Health and Safety Code stemming from California’s biggest food poisoning case, in which as many as 40 people died.

Gary S. McPherson, 45, was also placed on two years’ probation by Los Cerritos Municipal Judge James E. Pearce, who decreed that McPherson, who left a Pasadena accounting firm in 1982 to run the Artesia cheese factory, not be involved in the making of cheese during that time.

The judge also placed Jalisco Mexican Products on three years’ summary probation and imposed a $20,500 fine for its role in last year’s cheese contamination.

A somber McPherson, accompanied by his wife, Susan, showed little emotion as Pearce pronounced the sentence in a Bellflower courtroom. McPherson, who pleaded no contest to 10 misdemeanor criminal charges as part of a plea arrangement, declined comment as he left the courtroom.

Although prosecutors had sought a 45-day jail term for McPherson, they said they were “reasonably satisfied” with the judge’s sentence.

“Food manufacturers right up to the corporate president in the luxurious suite someplace have a responsibility to manufacture food safely in California,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Tom Papageorge said.

“Violations of the Health and Safety Code are not just technical violations for which you receive a slap on the wrist. The state Legislature meant it when they said they (the code sections) were criminal offenses.”

McPherson’s attorney, Roger Rosen, said, “We’re sorely disappointed. It’s been our position all along that this is clearly a case where jail time was absolutely inappropriate.”

Rosen argued in court that McPherson, although president of Jalisco, was not aware of the actual process of manufacturing the soft Mexican-style cheese since the factory’s cheese maker, company Vice President Jose Luis Medina, would not divulge the particulars of the process to him.

But the judge did not accept that reasoning.

“He didn’t know what was going on,” Pearce said, “but he had a duty to know what was going on.”

Medina was sentenced last month to 60 days in jail and fined $9,300 after he pleaded no contest to 12 criminal misdemeanor charges involving the manufacturing and selling of adulterated products and operating an unsanitary food plant.

Prosecutors said Thursday’s sentencing closes the books on a lengthy, difficult criminal investigation into the cause of the listeriosis epidemic that claimed, according to different government studies, 20 to 40 lives, most of them fetuses and infants.

Jalisco’s plant was padlocked June 13, 1985, and tons of its cheese was recalled and destroyed after health authorities noticed a sudden spurt in the number of listeriosis cases and linked the outbreak to the factory. The epidemic hit especially hard at Southern California’s Latino community, which was a major consumer of the cheese.

Despite months of investigation by federal, state and local officials, the cause of the epidemic could not be pinpointed. Much of the investigation focused on Jalisco’s pasteurization process because the bacterium that caused the poisoning, Listeria monocytogenes, was supposed to be killed by proper pasteurization.

Prosecutors, unable to determine a cause for the contamination, also were unable to prove that any of Jalisco 120 employees were involved in any intentional acts of poisoning.

Faced with that, prosecutors then decided to file misdemeanor criminal charges against McPherson and Medina, said Papageorge, head of the Los Angeles County district attorney’s consumer protection division who spearheaded the investigation.

Originally, McPherson faced more than 50 criminal charges. But he entered pleas of no contest--tantamount to a guilty plea--to 10 criminal counts on April 17.

Nine of the counts involved charges of manufacturing and selling adulterated food, and one stemmed from a charge of operating an unsanitary food-processing establishment.

McPherson is to surrender to authorities Aug. 1 to begin his jail term.

Rosen said he might ask that his client serve his time at a sheriff’s substation in Los Angeles County instead of the downtown County Jail.

Although Jalisco went out of business last year, its troubles are not yet over, attorneys for both sides said.

The company faces a civil lawsuit filed by the Los Angeles district attorney’s office and at least 18 legal actions by relatives of those who allegedly died as a result of the epidemic, they said.

In addition, it was not clear whether the company can pay the $20,500 fine assessed against it Thursday by Pearce. Further hearings might be necessary, Rosen said, “to prove to the court . . . an inability to meet the full fine.”