Food Manufacturer Sentenced to Prison for Selling Contaminated Cheese

Christian Rivas, owner of Oasis Brands Inc., has been sentenced to 15 months in prison for two charges that he sold cheese contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) instructed the company to stop distribution until it remedied its practices. FDA inspected Oasis in August 2014, found several violations and required Oasis to halt distribution of any products until they were cleared by laboratory testing. Rivas continued distributing Oasis’ cheese, which then failed a random Listeria test at a Virginia grocery store. In addition to his 15 months in prison, Rivas is subject to one year of supervised release. See South Florida Business Journal, November 16, 2016.

Issue 623