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Arrests Made in Colorado Outbreak of Listeria

DENVER — The owners of a Colorado cantaloupe farm were arrested on Thursday on charges stemming from a 2011 listeria epidemic that killed 33 people in one of the nation’s deadliest outbreaks of food-borne illness.

Federal prosecutors said the owners, the brothers Eric and Ryan Jensen, were arrested on misdemeanor charges of introducing adulterated food into interstate commerce. The Jensens’ lawyer did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Prosecutors said the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had determined that the Jensens had not adequately cleaned the cantaloupe.

The F.D.A. has said the melons were most likely contaminated in the Jensen Farms packing house. It concluded that dirty water on a floor, and old, hard-to-clean equipment were probably to blame.

The outbreak was the deadliest outbreak of food-borne illness in 25 years, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that people living in 28 states consumed contaminated cantaloupe.

Eric Jensen, 37, and Ryan Jensen, 33, operated their farm in southeastern Colorado. The farm filed for bankruptcy after the outbreak.

The F.D.A. said Jensen Farms bought the used processing equipment just before the outbreak, and it was corroded and dirty. Also, the packing facility floors were difficult to clean, so pools of water potentially harboring the bacteria formed close to the packing equipment, the agency said. Another possible source of contamination was a truck that frequently hauled cantaloupe to a cattle operation and was parked near the packing house.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section B, Page 6 of the New York edition with the headline: Arrests Made In Outbreak Of Listeria. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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