PROVIDENCE – A Johnston, RI, beef slaughterhouse was fined $20,000 and placed on three years of federal probation by U.S. District Court Judge Mary S. McElroy for fraudulently claiming that product they processed and suppled to customers had been federally inspected and passed as required under the Federal Meat Inspection Act (FMIA) when, in fact, it had not, announced United States Attorney Zachary A. Cunha.
Rhode Island Beef and Veal and one of its owners, Michael A. Quattrucci, previously pleaded guilty to charges of defrauding customers by claiming that beef had been inspected under the FMIA, as well as preparing beef without complying with inspection requirements of the FMIA. Additionally, Rhode Island Beef and Veal pleaded guilty to a charge of defrauding customers by use of an official inspection mark of the Secretary of Agriculture without authorization.
Micheal A. Quattrucci was sentenced on July 27, 2023, to one year of federal probation and ordered to pay a fine of $1,000.
According to court documents and information presented to the court, on August 20, 2019, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food Safety Inspection Service served RI Beef and Veal with a notice of suspension and withdrew its inspector. Eight days after the suspension was imposed and the inspector was withdrawn, a USDA supervisor visited the plant and found employees packing various cuts of meat and fraudulently applying USDA marks of inspections to the meat. Additionally, packaged meat with USDA stickers attached was found stored in bins. No inspector was present, as is required by law for these marks to be applied.
A day later, a USDA investigator visited the slaughterhouse and took photos of the illegally marked packages of beef that had been retained from the day before; he also noted 224 pounds of unmarked ground beef and a 594-pound half carcass of beef that had been freshly cut into primal parts for delivery to a customer in Connecticut who supplies meat products to restaurants.
The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Milind M. Shah.
The matter was investigated by the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service.