Man Behind Summer Egg Recall Linked to November Egg Recall

(Nov. 10) -- The man behind this summer's 550 million egg recall is at it again.

Egg seller Cal-Maine announced last week a recall of almost 300,000 eggs potentially infected with salmonella enteritidis, the same culprit as last time. The eggs are linked to the freewheeling poultry cowboy whose produce sickened some 1,600 people this summer: Austin "Jack" DeCoster.

Cal-Maine's tainted eggs came from a company called Ohio Fresh Eggs, whose biggest investor is DeCoster, a man who has shown a certain disregard for the FDA's many attempts to regulate him over the years.

The eggs involved in this summer's recall came from two farms: Hillandale Farms, owned by Ohio Fresh owner Orland Bethel, and Wright County Egg, owned by DeCoster.

At the time of the summer egg recall, The Atlantic published a detailed timeline that showed how DeCoster's tradition of unscrupulousness went all the way back to his earliest egg business at the age of 16. Locals from his hometown of Turner, Maine, told reporter Joe Fassler that DeCoster has always had a willingness to "screw even his best friend to the wall for a buck."

In 2000, after three successful lawsuits by Iowa's attorney general, he became the first person to be labeled a "habitual violator" of Iowa's environmental laws, according to the Christian Science Monitor.

In 2006, the Ohio Department of Agriculture revoked Ohio Fresh's permits because the farm had failed to disclose the fact that DeCoster was the principle investor -- his status as a habitual violator would have slowed down the permitting process. The permits were later reinstated with Bethel listed as owner alongside a business associate of DeCoster.

Luckily, so far there have been no confirmed illnesses relating to the tainted eggs, which are spread throughout Arkansas, California, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas.

Read more at the Christian Science Monitor and The Atlantic.

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