FDA Bans Feed Importer for Five Years for Redelivery of Fraudulent 'Sham Shipment' After Hold
The Food and Drug Administration banned an animal food importer from importing food for a period of five years for its attempt to bring in adulterated animal feed and subsequent customs fraud to cover up its misdeed, it said in a notice. Meunerie Sawyerville can’t import food again until 2023 as punishment for importing feed with elevated levels of monensin and then importing a second shipment under a false name to redeliver to CBP in lieu of the adulterated feed, FDA said.
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According to FDA, Meunerie Sawyerville was ordered to warehouse the 2012 shipment of animal feed after FDA sampling found the elevated levels of monensin, an antibiotic. Rather than comply with the FDA hold, Meunerie Sawyerville’s owner, Yves Bolduc, told the truck driver transporting the shipment to deliver the feed to a Vermont farmer as planned. He then imported another shipment of similar-looking feed, filing documentation in ACE that listed a false name, and had it stored elsewhere in Vermont until CBP requested redelivery.
Once CBP requested redelivery, Bolduc ordered the “sham shipment” to be presented to CBP, “accompanied by the fictitious documentation,” in lieu of the original shipment FDA actually ordered held. That resulted in an additional charge of making false statements on top of intentionally introducing adulterated food. A Vermont federal court already ordered Meunerie Sawyerville to pay $80,000 in fines -- $10,000 for the adulteration and $70,000 for the false statements -- after the company pleaded guilty to the charges in 2015.
Meunerie Sawyerville had sought an FDA hearing to challenge the five-year debarment order. It said it had taken steps to ensure it won’t ship adulterated feed in the future by discontinuing use of monensin. The company also said its guilty plea should be considered as mitigation of the penalty. But given that it made no changes to its structure, with Bolduc, who ordered the false shipment, still heading the company, there’s still “little assurance that Meunerie Sawyerville would handle future food import matters without resorting to the knowing and intentional deception of government regulators and the introduction of adulterated product that forms the basis of these offenses,” FDA said.
And while Meunerie Sawyerville pleaded guilty, the time for mitigating the violation was directly after the shipment occurred; instead, Meunerie “engaged in additional criminal conduct and devised the sham shipment and fictitious documents,” FDA said. “Rather than take steps to mitigate the harm from the earlier criminal offense, Meunerie Sawyerville chose to take affirmative steps to compound that harm. In this context, Meunerie Sawyerville deserves no credit for a guilty plea when its scheme was uncovered,” the agency said.
(Federal Register 03/01/18)