JUSTICE TASTES LIKE PRISON
FOR A ONE PERCENT MOGUL
FOR A ONE PERCENT MOGUL
The Associated Press and the Sacramento Bee report the fall of a food industry tycoon and one of America's super rich.
Frederick Salyer was one of the most influential and powerful men in the agriculture industry, but is headed to prison, convicted of price fixing and lying to consumers about the quality of his tomato products.
US Attorney Benjamin Wagoner says, "This is a tremendous fall from power. He was one of the richest and most influential..."
Salyer was accused of bribing buyers for companies such as Kraft Foods and Frito Lay to pay inflated prices for his products which were then passed along to consumers.
Federal Prosecutors say Salyer told his workers at SK Foods to lie about the quality of his product, the mold content and whether the product was organic. Government records say moldy tomatoes were processed into paste, pasta sauce and salsa.
Salyer's tomato farming-canning empire dominated 14% of the market. The AP says Salyer is from one of the West's oldest land and farming dynasties, going back generations.
The government found that Salyer and co-conspirators manipulated the price and quality of millions of pounds of tomatoes, paying bribes of up to $100 thousand.
Government records indicate Salyer tried to move some of his fortune to Andorra, a small nation between Spain and France. He made a down payment on a condo there. He is under house arrest at his Pebble Beach mansion. The wealthy captain of industry has been sentenced to six years.
I wonder if he'll eat the prison tomato sauce. I also wonder if Banking and Wall Street regulators or US attorneys have the same verve as the team that brought down Salyer. US Attorney Wagoner says he hopes the conviction will send a message to the agriculture industry to keep fraud out. Fraud-Investment banking? Hey, Mr. Attorney General Holder, are you listening?
CALIFORNIA ODDS AND ENDS
This beauty graced Main Street in Cambria's West Village.
See you down the trail.
