Jury selection started Monday in the trial of a former Blue Bell chief executive for his role in the listeria outbreak in 2015. Paul Kruse has been charged with fraud and attempt and conspiracy to commit fraud.
Kruse was chief executive of Blue Bell, and he was charged separately from the company. In 2020, the U.S. Justice Department said Blue Bell had agreed to plead guilty to charges against the company itself.
Blue Bell pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts of "distributing adulterated ice cream products" and agreed to pay a fine of $17.25 million. Blue Bell paid an additional $2.1 million to resolve "civil False Claims Act allegations regarding ice cream products manufactured under insanitary conditions and sold to federal facilities."
The Justice Department said the total of $19.35 million was the second biggest amount paid to resolve a food-safety matter.
Kruse, who retired as chief executive in 2017, was charged separately from the company. The indictment said from 2010 through April 20, 2015, Kruse "knew that appropriate practices to ensure sanitary conditions were not being followed and achieved at the Blue Bell manufacturing facilities"
The indictment said a quality control employee called a meeting to talk about roof leak concerns. The indictment said Kruse " failed to correct the roof leaks, condensate problems, and other insanitary conditions that continue."
The indictment said a quality control employee created a program to test for listeria in early 2011 "in part because of concerns about coliform levels expressed by inspectors with the United States military, a Blue Bell customer." The indictment says Kruse ordered the employee to stop listeria testing that April.
The indictment said Kruse and other Blue Bell executives learned from state and federal authorities along with third-party testing sites that seven products made at two facilities had tested positive for listeria between February 13, 2015 and April 20, 2015. The indictment accuses Kruse of withholding information from consumers.
Court documents show, while Kruse waited two months to issue a recall, no additional reports of illness were reported. Kruse is the only individual facing charges in the case, and his lawyers have previously said they are confident a jury will find him not guilty once evidence is presented.
