Coke secrets closing arguments heard

Coke secrets closing arguments heard

	Published : Wed, 31 Jan 2007 17:26 By : Agencies Print this Story

ATLANTA (AFX) - A former Coca-Cola secretary was deeply in debt, unhappy in her job and seeking a big payday, so she conspired to steal trade secrets from the beverage maker in a bid to sell them to Pepsi, a prosecutor said Wednesday during closing arguments in the woman's trial.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Byung J. Pak said the case against Joya Williams 'is about desperate times calling for desperate criminal measures.'

Williams' lawyer, Janice Singer, asked jurors to use their common sense in deciding whether the government had proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt.

'They have absolutely, 100 percent failed to meet that burden,' Singer said during her closing argument.

The government has alleged that Williams, 41, stole confidential documents and samples of products that hadn't been launched by The Coca-Cola Co. She then gave them to Ibrahim Dimson and Edmund Duhaney as part of a conspiracy to sell the items to Purchase, N.Y.-based PepsiCo Inc. for at least $1.5 million, prosecutors allege.

Dimson and Duhaney have pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing. Duhaney testified previously that Williams spearheaded the scheme. Dimson did not testify.

Williams was fired as a secretary to Coca-Cola's global brand director at the company's Atlanta headquarters after the allegations came to light last year.

During two days on the stand earlier this week, Williams testified that she didn't steal anything from Coke, but rather took documents and product samples home to protect herself in case her boss questioned whether she was doing her job.

She also claimed that $4,000 in cash she deposited into her bank account in June 2006, just days after Dimson was given $30,000 in cash from an undercover FBI agent in exchange for Coke materials, came from a friend, not from Dimson.

But the friend, Clifton Carroll, testified Tuesday that Williams was lying; he said the most money he ever loaned her was $400, and that was after her July 5 arrest.

Williams' lawyer has suggested that Dimson and Duhaney stole the documents and product samples from Williams without her knowledge and conspired to sell them to Pepsi behind her back. Williams testified she left a key under her doormat for one of the co-defendants, perhaps explaining how they could have gotten into her home.

But Pak said during his closing argument Wednesday that the key under the mat claim was another lie told by Williams.

'The fact of the matter was there was no key under the mat,' Pak told jurors. 'That did not happen. Mr. Dimson had an insider, and that was Ms. Williams.'

Defense lawyer Singer told jurors it was Duhaney who lied when he claimed on the stand that the conspiracy was Williams' idea.

She noted that Duhaney, who met Dimson in federal prison while they were both serving time, testified as part of a plea agreement with the government.

'It gives him a motive to lie,' Singer said. 'But Mr. Duhaney doesn't really need a motive to lie. He has a pattern of lying.'