Probation and a total of $35,000 in fines, just as a commenter pointed out in this thread from Friday.
A last minute switcheroony of the judge means that none of the letters or emails that so many pet owners cried while writing ever mattered and may not have even been read.
That makes it seem both callous and deliberate. And officially, this was a triumph of the justice system.
“Today’s sentence sends a strong message that we will work tirelessly to stop dangerous goods from entering the American marketplace,” said John Morton, the Department of Homeland Security’s assistant secretary for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). “
It does? Just how much did these “businesspeople” make on this contamination deal, and what does the $35,000 fine stack up against that? Is our astute commenter right? Even that will be paid for with insurance?
They pled guilty.
“By pleading guilty, Chemnutra and the Millers admitted that melamine was substituted wholly or in part for the protein requirement of the wheat gluten so as to make it appear the wheat gluten was better or of greater value than it was,” Beth Phillips, United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, said in a statement released today. “They also admitted that the labeling of the wheat gluten was false and misleading because the wheat gluten was represented to have a minimum protein level of 75 percent, when in fact it did not. The labeling was also false and misleading because melamine was not listed on the label as an ingredient.”
If it didn’t happen to us, it still could have. For a personal view, read The Pet Food Scandal of 2007: One Woman’s Story. The volume of contaminated material, and the large factories which make it, gives such a deadly decision great range for harm.
With weak laws and pitiful enforcement, avoiding such a problem becomes less likely.
We were fortunate. We were not protected.
I know which one I’d rather rely upon.
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It makes me angry all over again to read this blog entry. My cats weren’t affected, but they could have been. That’s all I can think when I read this. They could have been. This is a ‘we got tough on them’ message? Not by a long-shot.