Former exec pleads guilty to tomato price-fixing

[alp227]

Source: SF Chronicle

The former owner of one of the nation's largest tomato processors pleaded guilty today to running the company as a racketeering enterprise that bribed purchasers, fixed prices and doctored lab tests of moldy tomato paste.

Frederick Scott Salyer's admission of 11 felony charges in Sacramento wrapped up a six-year federal investigation into SK Foods that also led to convictions of five other SK employees as well as purchasing managers for Safeway, Kraft Foods, Frito-Lay and B&G Foods.

The company, based in Monterey and Kings counties, once produced 15 percent of the bulk paste in U.S.-made tomato sauces, ketchups and pizzas. It filed for bankruptcy in 2009.

Salyer, 56, of Pebble Beach, was SK's chief executive from 1999 to 2009. He was arrested in February 2010 during a brief return to the United States from Andorra, a European nation with which the United States has no extradition treaty, prosecutors said.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/03/23/BU3U1NPHPV.DTL

[Ian David]

1. Attack... of the Price Fixed Tomatoes.... Attack.... of the Price Fixed Tomatoes....

Sorry.

[elleng]

2. Say anything about removing all the FLAVOR from tomatoes???

[jtuck004]

3. For a minute in that first paragraph I thought it was Bank of America. n/t

[harmonicon]

4. What lessons should we take from this? (other than, not to leave Andorra) nt.

[truthisfreedom]

5. Sounds like Obama's Justice Department is getting the job done.

Do not fuck with America's tomatoes. Prices. Or moldiness. So what did we learn here?

[Vinca]

6. Is nothing sacred???

Profiteering off tomatoes is a step too far.

[fasttense]

7. He's doing nothing different than all the corporations selling crap in the US do.

He just got caught and prosecuted, unlike the banksters and corporate tycoons.

Once one business uses crime as a business model and gets away with it, then every business has to use crime as a business model in order to be competitive.

[lostnote12]

8. much truth in your statement....

[surrealAmerican]

10. If they catch enough of these criminals ...

... perhaps other corporate tools will hesitate to engage in such activities.


This is a small, necessary step to turn thing around.

[hunter]

9. Scum rises to the top.

Disproportionate numbers of the wealthy 1% are rotten.

These are the sorts of guys federal and state law enforcement should be going after, but rarely do.

Things like medical marijuana dispensaries the feds will gladly show up well-armed and kicking down doors. But criminals with expensive lawyers and crooked accountants, these they seem to shy away from.

I want to see some crooked bankers and defense contractors face down in the gutter with their hands tied behind their backs.

But even this guy, filthy rich and living in an enclave of protected wealth, was small fry.

[Auntie Bush]

11. Another guilty Republican corporate bastard!

Now are the prices of tomatoes going down? Doubt it!

[Citizen Worker]

12. Obviously what is needed is more deregulation and more flexibility for the market to police itself

and these things wouldn't happen. Yeah, right.

[Canuckistanian]

13. Corruption is too easy with lax regulation

It's getting to a point at which investment in American enterprises is now risky.

[MADem]

14. BASTARD! What a heinous crime! nt