By Tom Gilchrist
Staff Writer
BAY CITY — JoAnn Rutkowski, a former executive with the Thumb Oilseed Producers Cooperative in Ubly, faces a maximum sentence of three years in prison after admitting she knowingly allowed soy flour that tested positive for salmonella bacteria to be shipped to a Pennsylvania pretzel-making plant in 2010.
U.S. District Judge Thomas L. Ludington sentences Rutkowski on Feb. 5 in federal court in Bay City.
Rutkowski pleaded guilty to causing the introduction of adulterated food into interstate commerce. She admitted she was the cooperative’s chief operating officer and in charge of shipping products from the cooperative on Dec. 14, 2010 when the shipment of soy flour took place.
Rutkowski also faces a maximum fine of $250,000 at sentencing.
“This is a serious offense because salmonella is a potentially deadly bacterium,” federal prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum filed in U.S. District Court. “Rutkowski knew that the product contained salmonella then shipped it anyway because (the cooperative) was suffering financially and needed the revenue.”
Salmonella annually causes an estimated 1.2 million illnesses in the U.S., with about 23,000 hospitalizations and 450 deaths, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Rutkowski worked as the cooperative’s chief operating officer from 2004 to 2011, according to prosecutors.
In 2009 a California company reported receiving at least six complaints from customers who experienced gastrointestinal issues after eating its product, according to the sentencing memorandum. The company discovered its finished product contained salmonella and, along with state and federal investigators, traced the source of salmonella to the Thumb Oilseed Producers Cooperative facility in Ubly, which supplied soy grits.
Investigators with the federal Food and Drug Administration “say that testing salmonella is similar to testing DNA and therefore traceable,” the memorandum states. The California company tested product from the Ubly-based cooperative and “found a rare salmonella organism, salmonella senftenberg,” the memorandum states.
FDA officials later found salmonella senftenberg at the Ubly cooperative. As a result, the California company destroyed all finished product containing ingredients from the Ubly cooperative, including more than 14,000 cases of granola bars. The California company also recalled about 128,000 cases of shipped finished product, and about 130,000 pounds of organic soy grit product, according to court documents.
Thumb Oilseed Cooperative Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in March of 2012, according to court documents. The corporation’s Ubly facility sold soy flour, soy grits and refined soy oil, and had 180 member soybean growers in 10 Michigan counties.
On Dec. 14, 2010, an independent testing facility found salmonella in one lot of product at the Ubly cooperative, according to federal prosecutors, who allege Rutkowski “changed the laboratory test results to reflect that the product did not contain salmonella then shipped it to five customers …”
Court documents state that on Oct. 11, 2011, Rutkowski signed and swore to an affidavit — provided by the FDA — declaring she did not alter the laboratory documents associated with three lot numbers of product shipped from the Ubly facility. Prosecutors allege in court documents that “Rutkowski admitted that she lied on the Oct. 11, 2011 affidavit.”
Prosecutors state in their sentencing memorandum that “Outside of the (alleged) crimes … it appears that Rutkowski led an exemplary life. There are many members of the community who benefitted from knowing her as a person. She is a woman of faith and an active member of the community. She has a supportive family and is currently employed.”