Chicken king banned––again

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July 1996:

OLDENBURG, Germany––
Judge Hugo Sponer on June 11 permanently
barred Anton Pohlmann
from owning poultry for keeping
seven million battery-caged hens in
“permanent agony” through use of
nicotine sulphate to disinfect cages.
The illegal chemical treatment
also contaminated the hens’ eggs.
Sponer fined Pohlmann $1.4 million,
and sentenced him to two years in
jail, suspended.
Pohlmann, the biggest egg producer
in Europe, was previously
banned from the poultry business
“for life” in September 1994 by
Lower Saxony food and agriculture
minister Karl-Heinz Funke, after he
killed 60,000 hens who were infected
with salmonella galinarium by
having workers shut off their air
conditioning and their food and
water supply lines.

Pohlmann, believed to have
extensive investments in the U.S.,
had an application pending at the
time to build egg production facilities
near Mount Victory, Ohio, with
2.5 million hens and 925,000 pullets.
As of deadline, ANIMAL PEOP
L E was unable to determine
whether the facilities had actually
been approved and built.