Two Colorado cantaloupe farmers linked to the 2011 listeria outbreak that killed 33 people were sentenced on Tuesday to five years probation and six months home detention, USA Today reported. The convicted were also ordered to pay $150,000 in recompense and do 100 hours of community service.
The two farmers will not face any prison time for their role in causing the deaths, which the Food and Drug Administration has labeled as one of the country's deadliest outbreaks of foodborne illness in nearly a century.
Magistrate Judge Michael E. Hegarty said he wanted the famers, brothers Eric and Ryan Jensen, to stay out of jail so they could work to provide for their families while paying restitution.
"I must deliver both justice and mercy at the same time," Hegarty said, according to USA Today.
Eric and Ryan Jensen owned and ran Jensen Farms in Holly, Colorado. More than 125 people across 28 states became ill with listeria after they ate cantaloupe in August 2011, USA Today reported. The Center for Disease Control eventually traced the outbreak to cantaloupes that were grown at the Jensen Farms.
Listeria, a form of bacteria that grows inside a person, likely got inside the cantaloupes through dirty water and old equipment in the farm's packing facilities, USA Today reported.
Families of the victims who died from the outbreak testified at the sentence hearing. Some asked for the brothers not to be jailed, but others, including Patricia Hauser, wanted them incarcerated.
Hauser told Hegarty she had to watch her husband die a painful death. He once chocked on his own vomit during a hospital stay.
"The look of terror on his face still gives me nightmares," Hauser said, the Associated Press reported.
The Jensen brothers pleaded guilty in 2013 to misdemeanor counts of introducing contaminated food into interstate commerce and asked for probation, USA Today reported.
The brothers apologized for the outbreak, filed bankruptcy and provided almost $4 million in restitution to the victims of the outbreak, the Associated Press reported.
