Local News in Brief : 2 Meat Sellers Charged
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Two Gardena meat wholesalers were indicted Friday by a federal grand jury on charges that they secretly added chicken gizzards to their hamburger meat and passed off the mixture as pure beef.
Gerald Tully, 53, president of Tully Premium Meats Inc., and John Bero, 45, vice president of the firm, face up to three years in prison and $300,000 in fines if convicted of the conspiracy and the sale of adulterated and misbranded foods. According to the indictment, they sold at least 650 pounds of the mislabeled meat to firms in Los Angeles and Hawthorne in May, 1987.
Assistant U.S. Atty. Jeffrey Eglash said the meat, which was used by retail and wholesale outlets and by mobile catering trucks, does not pose a direct health threat.
“The danger is more in the abstract because chicken can contain the bacteria salmonella, which can make you very sick,” he said. “You expect it in chicken, so you cook it more.”
Tully denied that he had put chicken gizzards in the hamburger meat and said the federal charges took him “totally by surprise.”
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