AP Exclusive: Owner of peanut company linked to 9 salmonella deaths back in food business

AP Exclusive: Back in business after peanut deaths

WASHINGTON — The Associated Press has learned that the peanut industry executive whose filthy processing plants were blamed in a salmonella outbreak two years ago that killed nine people and sickened hundreds more is back in the business.

Stewart Parnell, the former president of the now-bankrupt Peanut Corp. of America, is working as a consultant to peanut companies as the federal government’s criminal investigation against him has languished for more than 18 months.

Congressional investigators uncovered e-mails in which Parnell once directed employees to “turn them loose” after samples of peanuts had tested positive for salmonella but were cleared in a second test.

Parnell invoked the Fifth Amendment to avoid testifying before Congress in February 2009.