E. coli Lawyer Pritzker Says Poisoning Cases Rarely Result in Prosecution
E. coli lawyer Fred Pritzker told Minnesota Public Radio today that Minnesota state officials would make rare news if they were to file criminal charges against a raw milk farmer from Gibbon, Minnesota, who currently is under fire on contempt of court allegations.
"The level of prosecution in foodborne illness cases is practically nil," said Pritzker, a national attorney based in Minneapolis who specializes in seeking damages for food contamination victims. "In all the years that I've been doing this I have yet to see a manufacturer, producer, actually prosecuted and convicted for any outbreaks.''
The audio of the MPR report can be heard below:
Steil and MPR have provided consistent and comprehensive coverage of the story.
The Minnesota case began to unfold last spring when state epidemiologists traced an outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 to raw milk dairy products from the farm of Michael Hartmann. State investigators inspected the farm last spring after associating its products to eight E. coli illnesses. It was re-inspected in October after the state linked seven more cases of food borne illness to Hartmann milk, this time Campylobacter and cryptosporidium. Hartmann was defiant and more conflict arose late last year when the Hartmann farm was caught selling its products in the Twin Cities against a state prohibition. The contempt of court charges arose when state officials reported that raw milk products embargoed by the state as unsafe had disappeared from Hartfmann's farm.
For his part, Hartmann has denied wrongdoing and has accused the state of overstepping its authority. But the state says in its contempt of court brief that Hartmann "has consistently refused to comply with food law for more than a decade." According to MPR, state authorities have said the case could warrant felony charges.
Mr. Prtizker, founder and president of national food safety law firm PritzkerOlsen, P.A., said the most recent example of a criminal investigation in a foodborne illness outbreak dates to the 2008-2009 peanut product Salmonella outbreak linked to now-defunct Peanut Corporation of America. Nine deaths and more than 700 illnesses were attributed to the company's tainted peanut butter, peanut paste and other items.
