The defendant, an egg producing company, was linked to an egg salmonella outbreak in 2010 that caused illnesses to almost 2,000 people. The defendant was ordered to pay a $6.8 million fine as part of a plea agreement Two of the defendant's executives were also fined $100,000 each and ordered to pay $83,000 in restitution. The court, on the sentencing phase of the case, sentenced the executives to three months of prison time each plus a year of supervised release. The executives claimed that they had no knowledge of the unclean conditions at the defendant's facility and were not directly involved. The court pointed out that the defendant's workers knowingly shipped eggs with false processing and expiration dates, and bribed USDA regulators to secure approval of sales of poor quality eggs. The executives are free pending appeal of the sentence. United States v. Quality Egg, LLC, et al., No. C 14-3024-MWB, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 50660 (N.D. Iowa Apr. 14, 2015).