They're Serious About Gluten In Durham
This guy (pictured in jail frocks infra) Paul Evan Seelig, the owner of Great Specialty Bread Co., was found guilty of 23 counts of fraud for selling products that contained gluten and made dozens of customers ill. This master baker was sentenced Tuesday to between nine and 11 years in prison. Wow. WRAL.com provides this dispatch as to the Tar Heel State's public enemy numero uno.
The High Falutin' Rootin' Tootin' Gluten Con
"Deceit is part of who Mr. Seelig is," Superior Court Judge Carl Fox said during the sentencing hearing.Seelig admitted during testimony last week that he lied when state investigators asked him about the products he sold as gluten-free. Defense attorneys said he did not deliberately mislead customers and blamed the inconsistencies on his supplier.
Many of Seelig's customers have Celiac disease, and ingesting gluten, a protein found in grains like wheat, barley and rye, can cause them symptoms ranging from diarrhea and abdominal pain to irritability and depression. Celiac sufferers carefully monitor their diet to avoid foods with gluten.
Seelig's customers originally brought their claims to the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, which turned the information over to Wake County District Attorney Colon Willioughby.
"When people knowingly put adulterated or contaminated food in the food chain and they know it's going to cause injury, I think it ought to be dealt with harshly," Willioughby said.
Fox said Tuesday that Seelig showed arrogance when testifying during the trial. He noted that customers trusted Seelig and thought he was their friend. Fox said he could understand why customers were so angry.
"In this court's mind, for you to have done what you did to these folks, you might as well have stabbed them. You might as well have beaten them," Fox said.
Seelig's attorney, Blake Norman, asked for leniency, given Seelig’s poor health and apparent mental problems.
“Clearly, there’s something mentally wrong with him, to be in business seven years and think that he could get away with this and could never get caught. I don't think throwing someone in prison will help solve that. He needs long-term cognitive therapy, and that’s not something get in prison," Norman said.
Fox said he had a hard time believing Seelig's claims of health issues.
As part of Seelig's sentence, he will undergo a mental evaluation. Fox also wants a health screen done on Seelig to determine if he is actually allergic to gluten, as he repeatedly claimed to his customers.
During the course of the trial, jurors heard from 23 customers who bought Great Specialty bread, only to be sickened after eating it.
Two of those customers spoke during the sentencing hearing.
"He gave me samples of what he led me to believe were gluten-free bread products," victim Zach Becker said. "He sat across the table from me and watched me eat poison."
Becker said for two weeks he ate Seelig's products and wrote about it on his blog devoted to living gluten-free.
During the sentencing hearing, Seelig apologized to his victims.
"I wish I could turn the clock back to 2009 and change my actions," he said. “I hope in their faith and in their hearts they have room for forgiveness. I pray each day that they will forgive me."
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration does not regulate gluten labeling or levels.
"What we would hope is that this case becomes an illustration of why the federal government does need to move forward with determining what that level is because people can be harmed," state agriculture department spokesman Brian Long said.
Comments: 2
Please join us in a peaceful demonstration in support of the Gay Community at St. John's University. We are advocating for basic human rights, tolerance and acceptance-- rights that all of our students deserve regardless of sexual orientation.
The mission of this sit-in is to raise awareness and ultimately make our voices heard to the administration. Join us in our demand of a more accepting university with the creation of a Gay-Straight Alliance Club.
As good as an institution as St. John's may be, they unfortunately do not provide an equal community for all. As you may or may not know St. John's refuses to have a Gay Straight Alliance, which prevents human rights for a good portion of the population at St.John's.
The protest is happening at the the St. John's Queens campus located at 8000 Utopia Parkway Jamaica, New York on the Great Lawn between 12-3. Wear a brightly colored solid shirt from any spectrum of the rainbow. It will be a quiet and peaceful sit-in.
If you can't be here in person please show your support by signing the petition:
http://www.petitiononline.com/9c2o1oRs/petition.html
follow us on twitter @STJacceptance
Join our facebook event:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=209881342355379
St. Johns outreach is the bare minimum, it has created outreach programs such as “Safe Zone” begrudgingly. It would have been great to go to the administration first about this but, unfortunately, over the last 6 years there have been several who have gone through all the appropriate channels to gain recognition, acceptance, and representation on campus and have been denied for NO other reason than St. John’s chose not empower those students based on sexual orientation.
Such outright denial and rejection of representation and participation marginalizes a portion of the school community. And the fact it is specifically based on orientation and amounts to nothing more than discrimination. Time and time again St. John’s has made it very clear its main priority is ensuring its financial backing remains intact-even at the expense of ignoring what any reputable college understands as basic and essential to respecting and protecting its students.
The students have a voice. They yearn to use it. But out of fear of consequences and jeopardizing graduation, even the most progressive and active students must be wary and even fearful of the language they use and stances they take. Even tenured professors are at risk of being FIRED for condoning a lifestyle that is contrary to what St. John’s believes. Not promoting it. Not pushing an agenda. Not trying to manipulate students. Simply saying “being gay is ok” is grounds for dismissal if it were to make it back to the administration. There is no such thing as free speech on campus. It costs. It costs a lot. There is something wrong when faculty and advisors warn you what you say, what you believe, and any dissenting opinion from the St. John’s beliefs can get your student organization suspended from campus.
St. John’s has made these changes gradually. But they have only done so out of pressure to placate students. We can no longer wait on an out of touch, dismissive, and an intolerant administration to dictate to students paying tuition who they can and cannot be and how they will be allowed to participate.
For a gay student on campus grappling with identity and acceptance from family and friends we can only imagine how much more difficult and painful it must be when your community and school so openly reject and deny you. This is New York city. People choose to send their children here because they understand there is much to learn in such an amazing town besides what can be found in books. But this is one learning opportunity that is being willfully ignored. There must be dialogue. There must be communication. There must be at the very least an acknowledgment that (gasp) there are gay students at a private catholic university. Just over the past decade St. John’s has lost most of its moral authority and legitimacy. We don’t need to call those ALL incidents to light here (mostly due to the fact this email would be entirely too long) but a basic google search I’m sure would reveal an institution consistently grappling with some of the most deplorable and reprehensible acts committed by individuals within its employ, at ANY institution.
But it doesn’t need to be this way. Most Catholics do stand for justice, equality, tolerance, compassion, and love. Christians around the world have fought and continue to fight for these noble and virtuous things and now more than ever we all must struggle to bring them into existence.
Supporting students is more than handing out cookies during finals. True and meaningful support can only found when times get hard. When your beliefs are challenged and must be reanalyzed-yet you choose to support those around you regardless. That’s true compassion. We all know love doesn’t mean anything if you abandon the most vulnerable when things get hard.
What we want is so basic its embarrassing writing this, truly. All we want is acknowledgement. All we want is the same participation and representation all the rest of the ethnic, cultural, and academic groups on campus are given. So, please, come to St. John’s to show your support. If you cannot, for whatever reason, please sign the petition. Thank you and God bless.
Harvey Milk
So...is this a protest for gluten-sensitive gay people?
OK, back on topic.
The Wife has celiac's and has to do the whole reading of the ingredient labels and such. It's hilarious when she checks the list of an item that she adores, hits wheat or barley (which is increasingly used as a cheap sweetener) and screams "BASTARDS!!!" to the heavens.
Yes, it's important that folks with celiac stay away from gluten, this is undeniable. But...well...
You ever see those people who use their handicap, or as we now like to call it, "Specialness", like a club? The ones who go past polite requests and jump right to lawsuits and general demands that NOBODY use or partake of that which they're allergic to? The Kid's allergic to peanuts, so she sits at a special table at lunch, and her friends know not to trade peanut-butter sandwiches with her. Never once have we considered making the school ban peanuts.
There's a fine line between requiring assistance and demanding concessions to inflate one's own sense of self-worth. I think we can agree that suing a pizza kitchen because one's wheelchair vantage point makes it difficult to see the pictureasque brick oven is on the wackbat side of it.