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Three indicted in soda scheme

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published July 12, 2006

ATLANTA - A federal grand jury indicted three people Tuesday on a conspiracy charge alleging they tried to sell Coca-Cola trade secrets to Pepsi and were willing to give the information to the "highest bidder" as new details emerged about the scheme and the suspects.

Former Coca-Cola administrative assistant Joya Williams and ex-cons Ibrahim Dimson and Edmund Duhaney pleaded not guilty at their arraignment.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Joel Feldman then ordered Duhaney and Dimson, who served time together at a federal prison in Alabama, held without bail pending trial. Williams was previously granted bond and remains free. She did not speak to reporters as she left the courthouse.

The crime was foiled after Purchase, N.Y., PepsiCo Inc. turned over to The Coca-Cola Co. a May letter Pepsi had received from a man the FBI later identified as Dimson that offered to sell Coke trade secrets to "the highest bidder," the indictment said. It did not say if the suspects offered the secrets to any company other than Pepsi.

The prosecution says a box containing two undisclosed Coca-Cola product samples and other confidential company documents were found in Duhaney's home during a search on July 5, the day all three were arrested.

Williams, who has since been fired as a secretary for Coke's global brand director at its Atlanta headquarters, allegedly took the information from the company and gave it to Dimson and Duhaney.

Dimson's lawyer did not challenge the government's request to hold her client without bond pending trial. However, Duhaney's lawyer, Don Samuel, did challenge the government's request to hold his client.

[Last modified July 12, 2006, 07:04:05]