Halal meat company owner indicted on meat misbranding allegations

The owner of a Cedar Rapids, Iowa-based Halal meat purveyor has been indicted on charges of fraudulently mislabeling beef product as compliant with Malaysian and Indonesian import standards, according to court documents.

The 19-count indictment filed in U.S. District Court in the Northern District of Iowa accuses William Aossey Jr., owner of Midamar Corp., of conspiring to sell misbranded meat, making false statements on export certificates, wire fraud and money laundering from 2007 to at least 2010.

Specifically, the indictment alleges that Midamar, which contracts with third-party processors to supply meat that it packages and sells, received product from a company identified in the indictment as “PM” slaughtered at that company’s Windom, Minn., facility, which is not an eligible exporter to Malaysia or Indonesia.

Midamar circumvented that detail, the indictment alleges, by using nail polish to remove from the packaging PM’s federal establishment number and relabeling the product with the establishment number of an Omaha slaughterhouse (identified in the indictment as “O.P.C.”) that is certified by those countries. Midamar also listed the wrong slaughterhouse on paperwork sent to the USDA to receive certificates for exporting, prosecutors allege.

Going back to 2010, the feds were looking into whether Midamar was falsely claiming its meat products were halal and seized more than $450,000 from the company in the process. 

Responding to the indictment, Midamar said in a statement posted on its website: “Midamar is disappointed by the charges. The government’s heavy-handed tactics in the course of the investigation during which company bank accounts were seized but later returned after discovery that Midamar had not engaged in any criminal misconduct, demonstrates the malicious intent behind the baseless charges alleging deceptive practices, fraud, and money laundering by Bill Aossey.

“The actions cataloged in the indictment refer to regulatory infractions committed without any intent to deceive or profit. To the extent that certain actions violated regulations, Midamar took actions to correct the violations to the satisfaction of USDA officials in the summer of 2011.”

“Midamar continues to operate as usual,” the company said.