AUSTIN, TEXAS (AP) -- The shuttered Texas plant owned by a bankrupt peanut company at the heart of a national salmonella outbreak was fined a record $14.6 million by the state Thursday.

Plainview Peanut Corp. LLC was fined over alleged violations that include unsanitary conditions, product contamination, illnesses linked to peanuts from the plant and operating for almost four years without a food manufacturer's license, the Texas Department of State Health Services said.  The Plainview plant voluntarily closed Feb. 9 after a private lab sample showed likely salmonella contamination. Texas health officials later ordered a recall of products there.

The state agency said it sent a notice of violation to the Plainview plant Wednesday.  The plant's owner, Lynchburg, Va.-based Peanut Corp. of America, is blamed for an outbreak that has sickened nearly 700 people and is said to be the cause of at least nine deaths.  Peanut Corp. filed for bankruptcy in February. Andy Goldstein, an attorney handling the bankruptcy case, didn't immediately return a phone call seeking comment.  Doug McBride, spokesman for the Texas Department of State Health Services, said the fine was the largest ever levied by the department and needed to be done regardless of the bankruptcy filing.  "We felt the assessment of the administrative fines needed to be done regardless of financial situations," he said. "If there is a violation, the penalties need to be assessed, period."

In January, federal investigators identified a Georgia peanut processing plant operated by Peanut Corp. as the source of the salmonella outbreak. Thousands of possibly contaminated consumer products have been recalled in one of the largest product recalls ever.

At the Texas plant, inspectors found a ventilation system was pulling debris from the infested crawl space into production areas. The plant was ordered by the state to stop producing and distributing food products.

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