NEW JERSEY MAN CHARGED WITH RACKETEERING, PRICE FIXING, BID RIGGING AND CONTRACT ALLOCATION

On December 10, 2008, Randall Lee Rahal, the owner and president of Intramark USA Inc., a New Jersey wholesaler of food ingredients, was charged for his role in conspiracies involving racketeering, price fixing, bid rigging and contract allocation, and with money laundering, in the processed tomato products industry. Mr. Rahal agreed to forfeit $600,000 as well.
According to the indictment, which was filed in the U.S. District Court in Sacramento, CA, alleged that Mr. Rahal served as a sales broker and oversaw various sales contracts between S.K. Foods, L.P. (“S.K.”) and its customer companies which included food product manufacturers, distributors and retail outlets throughout the United States. S.K. is a grower and processor of tomato products and other food products with operations in Monterey, Williams, Ripon and Lemoore, California.

Specifically, the indictment alleges that Mr. Rahal paid bribes to purchasing agents of customers of S.K. in order to ensure that those customer companies bought products at an inflated price from S.K. instead of its competitors and forced the purchasing agents to turnover to S.K. the bidding information of S.K.’s competitors. The money laundering charge stems from these bribes paid by Mr. Rahal to the purchasing agents. This conspiracy took place from January 2004 to April 2008, while the conspiracy to allocate customers and rig bids took place between February 2006 and April 2008.

Andre Barlow
(202) 589-1834
abarlow@dbmlawgroup.com