‘Disgruntled’ man sabotaged SC chicken plant, threatened public health, feds say

A criminal case before U.S. Magistrate Judge Shiva Hodges had the potential to cause a chicken public health emergency, she said.

“Me and my family eat chicken all the time,” Hodges told her small but crowded courtroom Wednesday in the Columbia federal courthouse. People don’t want to worry about poisoned chicken, she said.

William Jason Taylor, 51, formerly of Lexington County and now a resident of Spartanburg County, is accused illegally hacking into the remote chemical cleaning system of a Sumter chicken plant and adjusting the plant’s toxic chemicals, according to an indictment in the case.

Taylor, a “disgruntled” former employee of the company that cleans the plant, also disabled alarm systems intended to alert authorities when the chemicals are out of balance, according to the indictment and assistant U.S. Attorney Winston Holliday, who spoke in Hodges’ court Wednesday.

Taylor pled not guilty Wednesday and was released on $25,000 unsecured bond.

Taylor was indicted April 16 and charged with six counts of hacking into a supposedly secure chemical cleaning system of a company that remotely cleaned various chicken plants in South Carolina and Georgia. The system controlled dosages of various potent drugs used in the cleaning process.

Taylor’s improper application of chemical cleaning mixtures at the chicken processing plant caused a threat to public health or safety, the indictment said.

Using his unauthorized access, Taylor was able to change the distribution, flow rates and solution levels throughout multiple stages of the poultry processing at the Sumter company, identified only as “Company P,” the indictment said.

The chemicals whose dosage Taylor manipulated were peracetic acid and sodium hydroxide, which are “hazardous chemicals that pose a health risk to humans, both in their under-application and over-application,” the indictment said.

At the time, in 2023, Taylor was a “disgruntled” former employee of the cleaning company, identified in the indictment only as “Company C,” said Holliday.

While at the cleaning company, Taylor was a senior electronics customer service support employee and was responsible for “designing, fabricating, installing and maintaining chemical dosing systems at various plants in South Carolina and Georgia,” the indictment said.

Taylor’s former company, which has a facility in Columbia, had the capacity to remotely access and control the cleaning chemicals at chicken processing plants in the two states, the indictment said.

When Taylor left the company, it made him shut down his email and surrender his alarm codes, cellphone, identification badge and password sheet, but he was still able to hack into the system and begin manipulating chemicals at the chicken plant, the indictment said.

Taylor was also able to “turn off alarm systems that would have indicated the problem, and he changed the email addresses of those who would have been sent notifications to the chemical amounts used and alerts,” the indictment said.

Taylor “intended to cause damage” to the chicken plant, the indictment said.

Formal federal charges against Taylor are six counts of unauthorized computer access. Each is punishable by a prison term term of to five years and a $250,000 fine.

The indictment did not say if the unidentified plant was damaged or anyone was harmed by Taylor’s actions.

Taylor’s lawyer, James Zachary Farr of Spartanburg, had little comment to reporters after the hearing other than to say he is still in a fact-finding stage of representing his client.

Farr did say, in response to Hodges’ questions in court, that Taylor has a job in the Upstate and in that position, he has no ability to do anything that might negatively impact the community.

This story was originally published April 30, 2025 at 2:21 PM.