Didion Milling Inc., OSHA Crimes, Wisconsin 2024

A deadly explosion at a corn mill in Cambria, Wisconsin, led to a federal grand jury charging the company, Didion Milling Inc., with crimes related to worker safety, fraud, air pollution, and obstruction of justice.

The indictment, handed down on May 11, alleges that Didion Milling Inc. failed to develop and implement a written program to effectively prevent and remove combustible grain dust accumulations, and also failed to install explosion venting or explosion suppression on a dust filter collector. These willful violations of federal safety standards, as promulgated under the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSH Act), caused the deaths of five employees due to a combustible dust explosion at the mill on May 31, 2017.

The indictment also alleges that Didion Milling Inc., along with its vice president of operations, Derrick Clark, 48, of Waunakee, Wisconsin, its former food safety superintendent, Shawn Mesner, 44, of Readstown, Wisconsin, and its former shift superintendents, Anthony Hess, 54, of Pardeeville, Wisconsin, and Joel Niemeyer, 39, of Baraboo, Wisconsin, conspired to commit fraud by agreeing to take deceptive measures to conceal the failure to adhere to food safety procedures at the mill.

The alleged conspiracy included an agreement to falsify cleaning logs and baghouse monitoring logs, submit false environmental compliance certifications, and provide false testimony on matters within the jurisdictions of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Didion Milling Inc., Clark, Mesner, Hess, Niemeyer, along with the company’s former environmental coordinators, James Lenz, 65, of Deerfield, Wisconsin, and Joseph Winch, 66, of Logansport, Indiana, were also indicted for conspiracy to commit federal offenses in order to conceal violations and unsafe conditions from auditors and government agencies.

Defendant information: Didion Milling Inc., Derrick Clark, Shawn Mesner, Anthony Hess, Joel Niemeyer, James Lenz, and Joseph Winch. Charges: OSHA crimes, fraud, air pollution, obstruction of justice. Location: Cambria, Wisconsin. Date: May 11, 2024. Current status: Indicted. No sentence or fine information available at this time.

Former Didion Milling Inc. shift superintendents, Michael Bright, 36, of Merrill, Wisconsin, and Nicholas Booker, 42, of Cambria, Wisconsin, previously pleaded guilty to making false entries in the company’s cleaning logbook and false entries in the company’s baghouse log, respectively.

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