For over a week, WSKG Binghamton-area reporter Celia Clarke has been covering a salmonella outbreak in the Broome County Correctional Facility.
Over 300 people got sick and some were hospitalized. Clarke spoke with WSKG News Director Phoebe Taylor-Vuolo about the situation so far.
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Phoebe Taylor-Vuolo: Listeners can find all of your stories on our website at wskg.org. But first, Celia, just give us a brief summary of what's happened so far and where things stand now.
Celia Clarke: Sure, this is what the sheriff's office and the health department have shared publicly. Over the Memorial Day weekend, people in the Broome County Jail started getting sick – stomach aches, fever, vomiting, diarrhea. Medical staff started treating people, but the numbers increased quickly, and within about two days they had 320 of the 450 incarcerated population sick.
Salmonella was confirmed a few days later, about 10 people ended up in the hospital, and some were so sick we were told they could have died. No one has died.
Samples were sent to the Wadsworth Center in Albany, that's the state health department lab. The jail kitchen was shut down, meals were prepared off site and brought in, the whole place was cleaned and sanitized by an outside company. The only people who got sick were the inmates. That's because the jail staff isn't served the same food.
PTV: So, where did the salmonella come from?
CC: The investigation is still in progress.
The head of the county's health department is Olivia Catalano. She said the salmonella was found in some chicken salad that was served, but more testing is being done to be sure it's the same strain as the strain that made people sick. Those results might take weeks or a month to get.
At a press conference last week, Catalano read out the shocking list of food safety violations they've found. They found them through in-person inspections and from reviewing surveillance footage from before people got sick. Here's what she said:
"Our team observed numerous instances in which potentially hazardous food were improperly refrigerated. Specifically, we noted milk remaining on the loading dock for more than two hours, refrigerated and frozen foods left on the loading dock for more than five hours, frozen chicken left in the middle of the kitchen for more than three hours before being placed into a large skillet for cooking.
Multiple cases of that visibly frozen chicken were placed directly into a large skillet for cooking, and over the next several hours were attended to by the food staff. The food staff attempted to break apart that chicken while it was cooking.
Following the cooking process, another critical violation was noted when food was never temperature checked. After cooking, the chicken was not temperature checked. Accurate thermometers were not available or used to evaluate the potentially hazardous food, and temperatures were not checked during cooking, cooling, or reheating, or holding.
Instead, after the chicken was done, it was placed into a large container, approximately 18 inches deep. This is another issue. It should never be in a container more than four inches deep. The worker was then observed handling the cooked chicken with bare hands, another violation, while transferring it to the container.
Food workers are required to use proper utensils or barriers to eliminate bare hand contact with ready-to-eat food. In this case, the cooked chicken was taken from the skillet where it was cooked, placed into that large container, and directly stored in the walk-in only a few minutes later. No temperatures were recorded or verified during that time and that food sat all night in the walk-in [refrigerator].
Food must also be protected from contamination by workers during the meal preparation. Our team observed a worker mixing ready-to-eat chicken salad with bare hands in a container so deep that the worker's arms were submerged up to his elbows in chicken salad.
No hand washing or glove use was observed during this time. Food workers failed to wash their hands thoroughly after contaminating their hands, as well. Additionally, we documented multiple instances where workers failed to wash their hands after handling raw chicken or eating while in the kitchen.
Minor violations identified during our investigation [have] included, so far, poor hygiene and employee practices, like workers not wearing hair nets, workers eating in the food areas, improper cleaning, washing, and sanitizing of equipment and utensils.
Food contact was not – surfaces were not washed, rinsed, or even sanitized after use, following potential contamination points. Sanitizer buckets were not being used during any cleaning activities, and a buffalo chopper that was used to process chicken was then used to process celery, not cleaned in between and then the worker was observed simply rinsing it with water and putting it back together for use."
PTV: Wow, so who's responsible for all those violations? And is anything going to be done so that people don't get sick like this again?
CC: Who's immediately responsible is Trinity Services Group, the food vendor to the jail. They got the contract through a competitive bid process and they're responsible for training the food staff.
Trinity is a large corporation that only does food service for the corrections industry. They work in 40 states.
At one point, I think it was 2024, they settled an enforcement action for repeat violations in Broome County, same jail. They paid a fine and made a commitment to not repeat the violations, but here we are.
The sheriff says he's talked with the county attorneys about his options, and one of those is getting a new food vendor. Catalano says they're requiring food staff to be retrained on food safety.
PTV: And there have been some complaints about the way that all of this was handled. What are those about?
CC: Okay, so shortly after the first press releases from the Sheriff's Office, a Binghamton attorney named Ronald Benjamin sent out his own press release, saying he was representing some incarcerated people who had gotten sick.
PTV: And just really quick – other Binghamton area news outlets reported that a class action lawsuit was filed, and we didn't report on that. Before we go further, can you explain that choice?
CC: Sure. Well, the short answer is I didn't report about it, because a class action lawsuit has not been filed.
The document that Benjamin sent us actually says, “...as such, this is a class action lawsuit that will be filed in the event matters cannot settle.” [emphasis by WSKG].
Benjamin held a press conference where he said there was documentation and video to back up his claims against the sheriff, but when I asked if he would share them with us, he said he hadn't seen any of it. He was told about them by “inside sources”.
Some of his clients were also there – some released people, and some family members of people still incarcerated. They told us reporters that they hadn't gotten proper care, no antibiotics, and that the food was very poor quality, even before the salmonella outbreak. They said they saw little of the thousands of bottles of water that the sheriff said was brought in for them.
Of course, the sheriff and all those involved in taking care of people in the jail and the hospital refute these accusations.
PTV: So, this creates some reporting challenges because we have to get the facts right. What are those challenges for you, and what comes next?
CC: Whenever I, Celia-reporter-person, am in the middle of this kind of “he said-he said” situation, I literally have to take a deep breath before I react to anything.
I'm approaching this with as much skepticism as I possibly can. It's not about whether I believe any of these people.
I'm looking up food health violations, and I'm honestly amazed this didn't happen before now. And one of the questions I have is why these violations were allowed to keep repeating?
And I want to find out a lot more about Trinity, which has a record of lawsuits and food violations in other places.
Broome County Jail, before Akshar, had a history of accusations of mistreatment and records of real problems. And generally it's not easy to report about incarceration, because it's very hard to get inside to talk to people to see for myself what's going on.
This is all like putting together a jigsaw puzzle without having the picture on the box. I have to hope that I can get enough information to see the picture and to share that with our audience.
PTV: Thanks for talking with me, Celia.
CC: Always glad to do it, Phoebe.
