On Wednesday, the FBI and the Food and Drug Administration's criminal investigations office issued search warrants for the Natural Selection Foods LLC plant in San Juan Bautista and Growers Express in Salinas to investigate if they violated food safety and environmental laws.
The AP quotes U.S. Attorney Kevin Ryan as saying, "We are investigating allegations that certain spinach growers and distributors may not have taken all necessary or appropriate steps to ensure that their spinach was safe before they were placed into interstate commerce."
Federal officials have ruled out any possibility of someone purposely contaminating spinach with the virulent bacteria. The E.coli breakout lead to the death of one and sickened more than 190 others in 26 states.
Clearing the fact that the searches do not mean there is an ongoing or new threat to public health, FBI spokesman Joe Schadler, said, ""There is no indication there was any tampering of willful contamination or anything like that."
However the search gives light to a reasonable assumption that authorities believe a crime may have been committed.
Andy Weisbecker, a Seattle lawyer whose firm is representing people who got sick eating spinach in the last two months told the AP that the federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act provides criminal penalties for companies involved in the production or sale of "adulterated foods."
"If someone out there is pumping out hundreds of pounds of pork with trichinosis in it, you don't have to know you are doing that to be found potentially criminally negligent," he said.
