Former Blue Bell ice cream CEO charged with conspiracy in deadly listeria outbreak
Former Blue Bell CEO Paul Kruse was charged Friday with conspiracy in connection with the 2015 listeria outbreak that was linked to three deaths.
The U.S. Department of Justice announced the same day that the Texas-based ice company agreed to plead guilty to shipping contaminated products and pay more than $19 million in fines.
Federal prosecutors in Texas accuse Kruse of attempting to cover up the outbreak traced back to the ice cream company’s facilities. He was charged with conspiracy and six counts of wire fraud.
The listeria outbreak infected 10 people, killing three Kansas residents, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
Kruse left the company in 2017 and the board of directors in 2019, the company said. Blue Bell declined to comment on the charges against Kruse.
In a statement about the company’s guilty plea, Blue Bell told McClatchy News that it has learned from the 2015 listeria outbreak and improved production.
“Today we are a new, different and better Blue Bell,” the company said. “Our agreement with the government involves events that took place five years ago before we shut down and revamped our production facilities and procedures. Since resuming production in the summer of 2015, we test our ice cream and deliver it to stores only after independent tests confirm it is safe.”
The federal prosecutors accuse Blue Bell executives, including Kruse, of knowing about unsanitary conditions at manufacturing facilities since at least 2010 until 2015. This included product testing for coliform bacteria — an indicator of sanitary quality in foods — that was off the charts for years, according to prosecutors.
In 2011, Kruse is accused of ordering a quality control employee to stop testing these products with high bacteria counts for listeria, even after samples returned positive for the potentially deadly germ. On Kruse’s instruction, a Blue Bell employee destroyed records of the listeria tests and shipped the products to customers, prosecutors said.
Listeria is a life-threatening infection with high risk to pregnant women and babies, older adults and people with weak immune systems, according to the CDC.
Kruse continued efforts to hide the listeria contamination from customers in February 2015, even as health officials found the bacteria in products, prosecutors said.
He’s accused of instructing delivery drivers to remove the products from hospitals in Wichita, Kansas, and a Texas children’s hospital as well as schools in Texas and Florida without disclosing the listeria contamination. Kruse created a statement telling the customers “there was an issue discovered with one of our manufacturing machines,” according to prosecutors.
Blue Bell did not issue a public recall after health officials in Texas and South Carolina notified the company of listeria in ice cream products in February.
In March, the FDA and CDC linked the listeria sickness in five patients at the Wichita hospital to Blue Bell products and issued public recall notices, officials said.
“The health of American consumers and the safety of our food are too important to be thwarted by the criminal acts of any individual or company,” Judith A. McMeekin, associate commissioner for regulatory affairs at the FDA, said in a news release. “Americans expect and deserve the highest standards of food safety and integrity and we will continue to pursue and bring to justice those who put the public health at risk by distributing contaminated foods in the U.S. marketplace.”
Blue Bell is based in Brenham, Texas.
This story was originally published May 1, 2020 at 1:28 PM with the headline "Former Blue Bell ice cream CEO charged with conspiracy in deadly listeria outbreak."