The owner of Miami-based cheese company Oasis Brands Inc. is the most recent company executive to be sentenced for criminal violations related to pathogen-contaminated food linked to a deadly outbreak.
U.S. District Judge Robert N. Scola Jr. sentenced Christian Rivas on Monday to serve a total of 15 months in federal prison. Rivas negotiated a plea agreement in recent weeks, admitting he intentionally sold cheese he knew was contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes after he promised federal authorities he would cease distribution.
Rivas joins other food industry executives sentenced to federal prison on criminal counts related to outbreaks. Those cases include:
- Austin “Jack” DeCoster and his son Peter DeCoster sentenced in the Quality Egg case related to a 2010 Salmonella outbreak; and
- Stewart Parnell and his brother Michael Parnell, along with Mary Wilkerson, sentenced in the Peanut Corporation of America case related to an E. coli outbreak.
FoodWorld 