PAUL KRUSE MAKES FIRST COURT APPEARANCE IN 2015 BLUE BELL LISTERIA CASE

  

Court proceedings began Thursday for former Blue Bell President and CEO Paul Kruse, who faces charges in connection to the deadly listeria outbreak in 2015.

Kruse, who was indicted by a federal grand jury on six counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, went before federal Magistrate Judge Andrew Austin via video conference to hear his rights during the case, along with bond conditions.  Proceedings are being held through video conference due to COVID-19.

Kruse is being defended by Chris Flood of Houston and John Cline of San Francisco, the same lawyers who successfully argued for the initial dismissal of his charges in July.  The Department of Justice (DOJ) has assigned Matthew Lash and Patrick Hearn as prosecutors.

Flood requested that one bond condition, the right to possess firearms during the trial, be removed, saying Kruse needed firearms to protect his livestock.  Austin allowed Kruse to keep one firearm, while requiring the rest to go into safekeeping with someone else.

The charges faced by Kruse, according to federal prosecutors, relate to his alleged efforts to conceal what Blue Bell knew about listeria contamination in certain Blue Bell products.  Kruse was previously charged in May, but the charges were dismissed after the DOJ failed to empanel a grand jury.

At the time Kruse was first charged, Blue Bell agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanor counts of distributing adulterated ice cream products.  The company was sentenced in September to pay a total of $19.35 million in fine, forfeiture, and civil settlement payments, which the DOJ said was the second largest-ever amount paid to resolve a food safety matter.