Frederick Scott Salyer is facing a possible 20 years in federal prison in what prosecutors describe as one of the most audacious food industry schemes ever, one apparently designed to corner the nation's market for processed tomato products.

The conspiracy drove up food prices for people nationwide who used certain ketchup, salsa, juice, paste and any of dozens of other tomato-based products, and introduced old and moldy tomatoes into grocery stores, prosecutors contend.

The government has more than half a dozen food industry executives lined up to testify to buttress its case.

The case includes Anthony Ray Manuel, 57, formerly of Morning Star Packing Co. in Turlock and then an SK Foods executive. He has pleaded guilty to wire fraud and filing false tax returns. He is cooperating with the FBI.

Salyer, whose attorney declined to allow him to be interviewed, has pleaded not guilty and plans to fight the charges.

From the time he earned his agribusiness degree at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, in 1979, Salyer has worked in family ventures, creating companies, seeking out markets and building an international empire that, until its collapse last year, did more than $700 million in annual sales.

He took a farming operation that grew cotton and safflower and expanded into lettuce and tomatoes, shaping it into one of the industry's largest producers.

Today the 54-year-old Salyer sits in a seventh-floor cell at the Sacramento County main jail, denied bail because a federal magistrate judge has deemed him a flight risk.



Source: modbee.com