Tomato scandal gets closer to major processor

Tomato scandal gets closer to major processor

Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

(08-19) 17:11 PDT SACRAMENTO -- A former official of a major California tomato processor has agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy charges involving bribes paid to food companies, the first charges against a senior executive of the firm at the center of a federal corruption investigation, prosecutors said Wednesday.

Jeffrey Beasley, former vice president for industrial sales at SK Foods in Monterey, will admit that he took part in plans to pay the bribes and ship tomato products with misleading content labels, inferior quality and inflated prices, the U.S. attorney's office in Sacramento said.

A former SK Foods sales broker, Randall Rahal, has pleaded guilty to price-fixing and racketeering and admitted bribing employees of Kraft Foods, Frito-Lay and B&G Foods.

Purchasing managers for those companies have pleaded guilty to accepting bribes from Rahal. Former Kraft employee Robert L. Watson was sentenced last week to two years and three months in prison and ordered to pay $1.85 million in restitution to Kraft.

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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/08/19/MN7T19ATB8.DTL&tsp=1

Is capitalism great, or what?