Former Kraft Foods Exec Sentenced in Tomato Corruption Case

SACRAMENTO, CAU.S. Attorney Lawrence G. Brown announced Aug. 11 that Robert L. Watson, a former senior purchasing manager for Kraft Foods, Inc., was sentenced to two years and three months in prison to be followed by two years of supervised release, and ordered to pay $1,858,000 in restitution to Kraft Foods.

Watson pleaded guilty on Jan. 27, 2009 to two counts of honest services mail fraud in connection with a scheme in which he accepted more than $158,000 in bribes from Randall Lee Rahal, a former sales broker and director of SK Foods LP, a California-based grower and processor of tomato products and other food products for sale to manufacturers, foodservice distributors and marketers, and retail outlets nationwide.