Man Convicted of Illegal Cheese Making Gets 5 Months

A man described by prosecutors as the ringleader of an illegal cheese-making operation in South-Central Los Angeles was sentenced Tuesday to five months in jail after he pleaded no contest to two violations of the state Health and Safety Code.

Gustavo Hernandez, 43, was arrested last July during a raid at a garage and other buildings in the 5100 block of Ascot Avenue.

The state Department of Health Services later issued a health warning after tests showed the presence of listeria monocytogemes bacteria in two types of cheese being manufactured at the unlicensed facility.

The same bacteria, found in cheese manufactured in 1984 by a licensed Artesia cheese plant--Jalisco Mexican Products Inc.--that has since closed, was blamed for between 20 and 40 deaths.

Hernandez, who entered his pleas in Los Angeles Municipal Court, was the sixth defendant to be convicted in connection with the Ascot Avenue factory case, the Los Angeles city attorney’s office said.

Last July, three workers at the plant--Horacio Vieyra, 24, Juvenal Morales, 24, and Jose Espejel, 35--pleaded guilty to manufacturing a milk product without a license and were given jail terms ranging from 10 to 15 days. Prosecutors said Hernandez and the three workers lived at the factory.

The operation’s milk supplier, Edwin Leon Miles, 55, of West Covina, president of Spartan Dairy Inc., was fined $1,700 and ordered to pay a total of $20,000 in restitution to the state Department of Food and Agriculture, the state Department of Health Services and the Los Angeles Police Department after he pleaded no contest to illegal manufacture of a milk product.

In exchange for Miles’ plea, charges were dropped against his sons, Harry Edwin Miles, 24, and Dean Arnot Miles, 22, both executives of Spartan and West Covina residents.

Manuel Ortega, 27, of Los Angeles, who was arrested along with his brother, Francisco, while delivering milk to the factory, pleaded no contest in August to one count of distributing milk without a license and was fined $425. Charges against Francisco Ortega, also of Los Angeles, were later dismissed for insufficient evidence.

The one remaining defendant, Nasser Saif Alam, 24, of Bell, is to be tried Nov. 12 on four misdemeanor counts, the city attorney’s office said.