Fired worker sentenced to prison for releasing chemicals at SC chicken plant
A disgruntled former employee who remotely released toxic chemicals into a South Carolina chicken plant has been sentenced to six months in federal prison.
William Jason Taylor, 52, pleaded guilty to repeatedly logging into a computer system maintained by his former employee and releasing dangerous amounts of cleaning chemicals into a chicken production line in August 2023.
When confronted by FBI agents, Taylor described his actions as a “silly joke.”
But courts and prosecutors disagreed. Senior U.S. District Court Judge Cameron McGowan Currie, who sentenced Taylor on Nov. 3, called it “an act of revenge” for his firing. On his release from federal prison, Taylor will serve another six months of house arrest while wearing an ankle monitor. He will also have to pay $5,516.26 in restitution to his former employer, ChemStation.
“It was more than a prank,” said Assistant United States Attorney Winston Holliday, who prosecuted the case. Taylor’s actions potentially jeopardized the health of the workers at the plant and the public, Holliday said in court Monday.
“There are no words for my sincere remorse,” Taylor told the court.
Wearing a black suit and accompanied by tow of his children, Taylor choked up at times as he offered apologies to his former employer, the court and his family.
“I’m asking that I can have a second chance at life,” Taylor said.
How did Taylor access chicken plant chemical system?
Taylor, who has an associates degree in electrical engineering, was hired by ChemStation in 2020. The Ohio-based company provides industrial cleaning services that can be operated remotely to a range of manufacturing and meat packing facilities.
Taylor had “gotten in over his head,” said his attorney Zachary Farr. In June 2023, Taylor was fired from ChemStation after he caused a shutdown at a plant in Georgia.
Later that summer, Taylor realized that he still had access to ChemStation’s system through an app on his personal phone, which gave him remote access to adjust the chemical levels at the Pilgrim’s Pride chicken processing plant in Sumter, South Carolina. ChemStation used the same username and password for all of its systems, according to court filings.
Using the app, over a two-week period Taylor repeatedly changed the levels of peracetic acid and sodium hydroxide, two cleaning chemicals used in chicken production. On one occasion he caused a spike in chemicals, which “posed a potential health hazard” to workers at the plant, according to court records.
In order to cover his tracks, Taylor shut off the alarms and changed the email notification setting in the system so that no one would be alerted to the changes in chemical levels.
He was ultimately apprehended when investigators connected the IP address used to access the system with Taylor’s new employer.
The fact that he did this repeatedly showed “a lack of reflection” on Taylor’s part, said Holliday, who asked the court to sentence Taylor to twelve months and a day in federal prison.
In filings urging the court to adopt a lower sentence, Farr provided five letters from Taylor’s children, family and friends describing Taylor as a devoted husband and father to his three kids.
Prosecutors did not dispute this description. In court, Holliday described Taylor as “generally a good citizen.”
But the risk his actions posed to employees and the public, as well as the steps that he took to hide his actions could not be ignored, Holliday said.
“It wasn’t letting the air out of someone’s tires,” Holliday said. “Everyone I’ve talked to about this case looks at chicken in the supermarket differently now.”
This story was originally published November 4, 2025 at 5:15 AM.