Former DeCoster employee gets probation for role in bribing egg inspector

CEDAR RAPIDS - The former marketing manager of an Iowa egg-production facility linked to a 2010 national Salmonella outbreak was sentenced to probation Tuesday for conspiring to bribe a federal egg inspector.

Tony Wasmund, 64, of Willmar, Minn., was sentenced in U.S. District Court's Northern Iowa District to four years of probation after admitting in 2012 to conspiring with at least one other Quality Egg LLC employee to give a USDA egg inspector $300 to release for sale eggs that failed to meet federal standards.

Wasmund worked for Austin 'Jack” DeCoster and Peter DeCoster, a father and son originally from Clarion who were sentenced in April to three months in prison for introducing adulterated food into interstate commerce. The DeCosters will be required to complete a year of probation following prison and pay $100,000 each.

The DeCosters' former company, Quality Egg, will pay nearly $6.8 million.

Numerous delays in Wasmund's sentencing led to speculation prosecutors were using his testimony to grand juries to implicate others in the DeCoster operation. Wasmund's attorney, Richard Kerger, of Toledo, Ohio, told The Gazette in 2013 that he thought the DeCosters were likely targets of ongoing investigations.

Food safety attorneys said in April the DeCoster sentence would send a strong message to other food producers to clean up their acts.

More than 1,900 people across the country reported getting sick in 2010 from Salmonella enteritidis linked to tainted eggs supplied by Quality Egg, doing business as Wright County Egg, and Hillandale Farms, an Alden, Iowa, operation also managed by the DeCosters.

The companies recalled 550 million eggs nationwide.

Salmonella causes diarrhea, fever and abdominal cramps that usually last just a few days. But the illness is linked to 19,000 hospitalizations and 380 deaths a year, Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.

Iowa is the nation's top egg-producing state.