Federal prosecutors secured a conviction for a 2021 outbreak that killed one and hospitalized 12. The state agency with cheese factory authority left no visible enforcement record.
A Paterson cheese manufacturer pleaded guilty in federal court three weeks ago to selling adulterated queso fresco that killed one person and hospitalized 12 across four states. The state agency with authority to inspect cheese plants in New Jersey left no visible record of enforcement action in the five years since federal regulators first warned the plant was unsafe.
Abuelito Cheese Inc., operating as El Abuelito Cheese from a facility at 607-609 Main Street in Paterson's First Ward, entered its plea before Judge Cari Fais, according to the DOJ press release. The company admitted to one misdemeanor count of introducing adulterated food into interstate commerce. Federal prosecutors secured the plea five years after the Food and Drug Administration first warned the company its plant conditions could breed lethal bacteria.
The timeline stretches back to January 2020, when FDA inspectors spent more than three weeks inside the Paterson facility. They found Listeria innocua and Listeria grayi, non-pathogenic strains that signal conditions hospitable to Listeria monocytogenes, the pathogen that causes listeriosis. The company had no written food safety plan, no hazard analysis for environmental pathogens, no preventive controls, no system for monitoring sanitizer concentration and no employee training records. A prior FDA inspection in May 2019 had flagged the same missing food safety plan. The company responded in February 2020, describing corrective actions, and again in June of that year. The FDA issued a formal Warning Letter on June 4, 2020, during the height of the global COVID-19 pandemic.
The company kept producing cheese for eight more months.
The first illness onset came on October 20, 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. By the time the company recalled its queso fresco on February 19, 2021, and expanded the recall to quesillo and requeson products under ten brand names eight days later, the outbreak had hospitalized 12 people and killed one. The CDC later confirmed that all 13 victims were Hispanic. Four of the illnesses were pregnancy-associated, resulting in two pregnancy losses and one premature birth. The median age of victims was 51, the report documents.
The FDA's Office of Criminal Investigations opened a case. FDA Office of Criminal Investigations New York Field Office special agents, under Special Agent in Charge Fernando McMillan, led the investigation, the DOJ press release states. It took five years to reach a guilty plea.
The plea agreement, filed in federal court as docket 2:26-mj-09064-CF, requires Abuelito Cheese Inc. to pay a $487,754 criminal fine and forfeit $658,430, the approximate value of the adulterated food it sold. The maximum statutory exposure was five years of probation and a $500,000 fine, or twice the gross gain or loss. The filing states the company agreed to implement a compliance and ethics program and report its remediation to federal prosecutors. The plea agreement includes no independent monitor provision. The company ceased production permanently in February 2021. Vice President Senen Torres signed the plea on behalf of the corporation. No individual officer or employee faces criminal charges.
State Side Harder to Trace
The federal prosecution tells one side of the regulatory story. The state side is harder to trace.
The New Jersey Department of Health holds statutory authority over cheese plant inspection and licensing, according to the Department of Health and the Association of Food and Drug Officials. Open-source searches found no publicly posted inspection or enforcement records from the New Jersey Department of Health regarding the Paterson facility between the June 2020 FDA warning and the February 2021 outbreak. NJ DOH Dairy Project inspectors conduct routine and unannounced inspections of cheese plants, but manufacturing facility records are not posted in public databases. Whether the department inspected the plant, deferred to federal regulators, or faced pandemic-era capacity constraints is not visible in open sources. NJBallot has filed OPRA requests with the Department of Health to confirm whether inspection records exist.
The New Jersey Legislature's Assembly Commerce, Economic Development and Agriculture Committee holds jurisdiction over food and agriculture matters. No committee hearing or resolution referencing the El Abuelito outbreak or listeria appeared in open-source legislative records from 2021 through 2026. The New Jersey Farm Bureau's 2026 policy resolutions, adopted in March, do not address the El Abuelito outbreak or listeria specifically, though they do include a proposal to transfer on-farm dairy processor inspection authority from the state Department of Health to the state Department of Agriculture and to establish food safety training for on-farm processors. Senate bill S751, introduced in January 2026, would transfer this on-farm inspection authority to the state Department of Agriculture.
The product itself explains part of the harm pattern. Queso fresco is a soft fresh cheese, a staple in Hispanic households, sold in ethnic grocery stores and corner markets. The FDA warned that some retailers repackaged bulk quesillo into smaller containers without original labeling, leaving consumers unable to trace the product back to the Paterson plant. The company sold the cheese under ten brand names—El Abuelito, Rio Grande, Rio Lindo, El Viejito, El Paisano, El Sabrosito, La Cima, Quesos Finos, San Carlos and Ideal—and distributed across 26 states. FDA records designated the Plant as #34-12179. Despite the 26-state distribution, the outbreak remained contained to four states.
A 2015 United Way study of Paterson's First Ward, the most recent available in open sources, found that 54 percent of Hispanic residents in that neighborhood, where the facility sits, lack quick access to diverse healthy food options. Thirty-two percent lack access to both food options and transit. Corner stores and supermarkets are the primary shopping destinations. The CDC and FDA issued multiple outbreak notices and advisories in both English and Spanish during the 2021 recall, but no Hispanic community organization or local health advocate issued a public statement during the outbreak or the plea, according to NJBallot's open-source searches.
The office of U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Robert Frazer handled the case. Frazer took the post in March after a fourteen-month vacancy that saw two interim appointments voided by federal judges. The office's publicly announced cases since his appointment include the Abuelito guilty plea. Senators Cory Booker and Andy Kim stated that "the White House's failure to name a capable U.S. Attorney nominee over 14 months has had a detrimental impact on cases before our courts," the statement records.
Food safety law firm Marler Clark investigated the outbreak and offers representation to victims; open-source searches found no record of settled civil litigation. The DOJ Victim Witness Unit has invited victims and family members to submit impact statements. Judge Fais scheduled sentencing for October 15, 2026, according to the DOJ Criminal Division. The Department of Justice's Victim Witness Unit opened a toll-free line at 888-549-3945 and invited victims and family members to submit impact statements by mail, fax, or email to VictimAssistance.fraud@usdoj.gov.
The federal case is public. The state records are not published. What the Health Department knew, and when, sits in Trenton.
Sources
• Association of Food and Drug Officials, "New Jersey Food Safety Jurisdictions and Enforcement Authorities" (2022)
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "Outbreak of Listeria monocytogenes Infections Linked to Queso Fresco Made by El Abuelito Cheese Inc. — Investigation Updates" (archived May 14, 2021)
• Cory Booker and Andy Kim, U.S. Senators, "Booker and Kim Statement on Appointment of Robert Frazer, U.S. Attorney for New Jersey" (March 23, 2026)
• Food and Drug Administration, "El Abuelito Expands Recall to Include Queso Fresco, Quesillo, and Requeson Products Because of Possible Health Risk" (February 27, 2021)
• Food and Drug Administration, "El Abuelito Cheese Inc. Recalls All Queso Fresco Products" (February 19, 2021)
• Food and Drug Administration, "Warning Letter CMS #605472 — Abuelito Cheese Inc." (June 4, 2020)
• Marler Clark, "El Abuelito Queso Fresco Cheese Listeria Outbreak" (April 7, 2023)
• New Jersey Department of Health, "Dairy — Apply or Renew Certification for Wholesale Cheese Plant" (current)
• New Jersey Farm Bureau, "2026 Policy Resolutions" (March 2026)
• New Jersey Legislature, Bill No. S751, "Dairy Processing Inspection Authority Transfer" (January 2026)
• "New Jersey Federal Judges Appoint Robert Frazer as U.S. Attorney," NJ Monitor (March 23, 2026)
• "New Jersey Judges Name a U.S. Attorney, Defying Trump," New York Times (March 23, 2026)
• In re: Appointment of Alina Habba as United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey, Third Circuit Court of Appeals (December 1, 2025)
• "Food Environment in the First Ward of Paterson, NJ," United Way of Passaic County (2015)
• U.S. Department of Justice, Criminal Division, "United States v. Abuelito Cheese, Inc." — Victim Notification Program (updated June 4, 2026)
• U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Attorney's Office, District of New Jersey, "Paterson Cheese Manufacturer Pleads Guilty to Selling Adulterated Food Products" (May 21, 2026)
• U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, Case No. 2:26-mj-09064-CF, "United States v. Abuelito Cheese Inc. — Plea Agreement" (May 21, 2026)