991154 Hudson Foods Grilled in Meat TrialNovember 15, 1999Lincoln, NE - Before ordering the largest meat recall in U.S. history, executives at Hudson Foods stonewalled federal officials for a week about how much beef was potentially contaminated, a prosecutor told a jury. Arkansas-based Hudson and two company executives - Brent Wolke, plant manager at the time of the recall, and Michael Gregory, Hudson's director of quality control at the time - are charged with lying to federal food inspectors in 1997. If convicted, they could face up to 10 years in prison. The company could be fined $500,000. Hudson initially ordered a recall of 20,000 pounds of ground beef produced at its Columbus, Neb., plant, though company workers knew more beef might have been contaminated with the E. coli bacteria, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jan Sharp said. A recall of 25 million pounds of ground beef was eventually ordered, but not until hamburger produced at the plant was linked to an E. coli outbreak that sickened 15 people, Sharp said in his opening statement. The plant eventually was closed and sold. Defense attorneys denied there was a conspiracy or that anyone lied to the government. Hudson attorney Ty Cobb said in his opening statement that company officials believed the suspect meat was limited to one shipment of beef carcasses.
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