U.S. District Judge Fernando M. Olguin sentenced a California man to probation and home detention and ordered him to pay a share of more than $307,000 in restitution for falsely certifying beef being sold by his employer as free of E. coli bacteria, which led to the recall of 5.7 million pounds of meat products.

Consultant and four-decade veteran of the beef industry Jim Johnson admitted in 2010 that he knowingly and willfully provided the USDA's Food Safety Inspection Service with a fake Certificate of Analysis, which falsely stated that a beef sample from the now-defunct Huntington Meat Packing Co. tested negative for E. coli. Johnson pleaded guilty last year to giving false statements, which is a federal charge.

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Source: mynewsLA.com