Nine dairy farmers and a truck driver facing ten years in prison for milk tampering may go free after a judge struck all 25 people from the government’s witness list (see DII 63(6)11 for background).
A report in US journal The Cheese Reporter said the decision by US District Judge Terry Means was punishment for a prosecutor who failed to turn over documents to defence attorneys by a deadline the court had imposed.
Assistant US Attorney David Jarvis is said to have conceded that he did not give the grand jury certain letters by the 17 March date set by the judge. Those letters informed recipients of the grand jury investigation and encouraged them to become government witnesses.
Defence lawyers claimed the correspondence in question was of a threatening nature and they wanted to use it during the trial as evidence that the witnesses concerned had been co-erced.
Judge Means’ ruling is understood to have left the US government with no witnesses in the case.