Friday, June 14, 2013

Two men found innocent in poultry temperature fraud case

    A federal jury has found two Mississippi men innocent of falsifying records on temperatures of poultry exported to Russia from Pascagoula. The jury agreed that poultry further away from the refrigeration unit in a trailer would be warmer than poultry closer to the unit, and no fraud was committed.
    Gerald Miller and Patrick McClain were tried on a charge of conspiracy to commit crimes against the U.S. Miller was tried on additional charges of fraud and making false statements to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
    The jury heard testimony that the men worked for Gulf Coast Cold Storage, a business at the Port of Pascagoula, in 2009 when records on poultry temperatures allegedly were falsified. The government maintained the men conspired to circumvent requirements in a Russian trade agreement while increasing productivity for their employer.
    The men were accused of directing workers to falsify blast-freezer records and to restack loads of poultry to disguise portions that had not been chilled to the required temperature. The jury heard testimony about the temperature of poultry tested at the back door of a tractor-trailer, which has its refrigeration unit at the front of the trailer.
    "If you test one by the door that's 2 degrees, you know those farther back have got to be zero," defense attorney Calvin Taylor told the Sun Herald. "The regs don't say the entire tractor-trailer load is no good if one piece of poultry tested just above zero," Taylor said. "The government says, 'No, sir', but the jury agreed with common sense."
    A third suspect in the case, Terry White, was a warehouse supervisor at the business in 2009. He pleaded guilty to the conspiracy charge and will be sentenced on August 19. He faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. 

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