Sacramento Business Journal by Mark Anderson, Staff writer

A New Jersey man has agreed to plead guilty to racketeering, money laundering and antitrust charges in U.S. District Court in Sacramento for paying bribes to win contracts for supplying processed tomato products.

Randall Lee Rahal, 61, of Ramsey, N.J., is the owner of Intramark USA Inc. a wholesaler of food products. He agreed to plead guilty to charges that he paid bribes to win contracts, keep contracts and find information about competitors’ bids. Rahal worked as a broker for SK Foods LP, a grower and processer of processed tomato products.

Processed tomatoes are sold to major food manufacturers and used to make sauces, ketchups, soups, salsas and other items. As a broker for SK Foods, Rahal negotiated and executed contracts between SK Foods and its customers, including manufacturers, distributors and retailers. Rahal, according to the charges, routinely paid bribes to purchasing agents of of SK Foods’ customers to make sure they bought from SK Foods, so they would pay an inflated prices and to give SK Foods bidding information from competitors.

Rahal also was involved with directing the sale of inferior products between January 2004 and April of this year, and he also directed the falsification of internal and customer documents to hide that fact he was selling inferior products than what contracts called for.

Rahal is cooperating in the government’s investigation. He will have to forfeit more than $600,000. The charge against Rahal was made public Wednesday. It is the first charge in an ongoing joint investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Eastern District of California, the Justice Department Antitrust Division’s San Francisco field office, the Federal Bureau of Investigations and the Internal Revenue Service. SK Foods is based in Monterey. It has processing and distribution plants in Williams and Lemoore.

Tomato grower Don Cameron, who serves on the California Tomato Growers Association’s board of directors, said the industry has been waiting to see what would happen at SK Foods since news broke of investigations at the company this summer. “I think there was some expectation that criminal charges would follow,” he said. “We’ll have to see how it goes. It could possibly affect growers that contract with them this coming year. The real rub could affect growers if banks refuse to lend to SK.”

The tomato growers group and tomato processors have started negotiations on prices for tomato-growing contracts next year. Celia Lamb contributed to this story.