Midamar Founder Sentenced to Prison for Fraud in Export of Halal Meat

Following up on our previous posts, here, here, and here, on February 25, 2016, Bill Aossey, Jr., the Founder of Midamar Corporation, was sentenced to two years in prison for committing fraud in exporting beef products to Malaysia and Indonesia. Judge Reade's sentence was significantly below the federal guidelines. Mr. Aossey was convicted in July 2015 on 15 counts of conspiracy, making false statements on export certificates and wire fraud.  Mr. Aossey had directed Midamar employees to remove the slaughterhouse-of-origin numbers from the packaging of meat received from a plant not approved for export into Indonesia and Malaysia and replace them with numbers from an approved plant prior to export. Mr. Aossey is a pioneer in the halal food industry.  He founded Midamar Corporation in 1974 and built it into a brand that distributed more than 200 halal food products.  Sentencing remains for the other defendants: Midamar Corporation, Islamic Services of America (ISA), a related halal certification organization, and Mr. Aossey's two sons, who pleaded guilty to charges similar to their father.