>From - Sat Mar 02 00:57:15 2024
Received: by 10.36.135.4 with SMTP id i4mr198760nzd.1170338615610;
Thu, 01 Feb 2007 06:03:35 -0800 (PST)
Return-Path: <jm..._at_tscm.com>
Received: from lvs00-fl-n04.ftl.affinity.com (lvs00-fl-n04.ftl.affinity.com [216.219.253.138])
by mx.google.com with ESMTP id v28si188137nzb.2007.02.01.06.03.35;
Thu, 01 Feb 2007 06:03:35 -0800 (PST)
Received-SPF: neutral (google.com: 216.219.253.138 is neither permitted nor denied by best guess record for domain of jm..._at_tscm.com)
Received: from [71.243.16.2] ([71.243.16.2]:59843 "EHLO Raphael.tscm.com")
by ams004.ftl.affinity.com with ESMTP id S375081AbXBAODc convert rfc822-to-8bit
(ORCPT <rfc822;T..._at_googlegroups.com>);
Thu, 1 Feb 2007 09:03:32 -0500
Message-Id: <7.0.1.0.2.20070201083116.1426e890_at_tscm.com>
X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 7.0.1.0
Date: Thu, 01 Feb 2007 08:36:25 -0500
To: TSCM-L <TSCM-..._at_googlegroups.com>
From: "James M. Atkinson" <jm..._at_tscm.com>
Subject: Coke, A Spy, and the $4,000 Question
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8BIT
http://www.11alive.com/news/article_news.aspx?storyid=91358
Coke, A Spy, and the $4,000 Question
Four thousand dollars. Who gave it to Joya Williams?
The dispute over the $4,000 that Williams
deposited into her bank account in June is just
one of the key questions jurors will have to
answer when they begin deliberating, on
Wednesday, the massive federal case against
Williams that she conspired, last year, to try
to sell her employers trade secrets to a competitor for $1.5 million.
Her employer was the Coca Cola Company. The competitor: Pepsi.
This is a woman who was working for a top
executive at Coca-Cola headquarters in Atlanta.
Williams had access to some of Coke's trade secrets.
Williams was also deep in credit card debt. She
owed, she has said during the trial, $45,000,
which was, for her, a year's salary.
Suddenly, on June 17, 2006, Joya Williams
deposited $4,000 into her personal bank account.
That was one day after her friend scored some
big-time cash, $30,000, selling Coke trade
secrets to a man he thought was a Pepsi spy, who
turned out to be an undercover FBI agent.
Joya Williams insisted on the stand, in federal
court in Atlanta on Monday, that she never got a
cut of that money, which the prosecution contends
was the first installment of what she and two
co-defendants hoped would yield them $1.5
million. Williams insisted she never knew
anything about any conspiracy against Coke.
She said another friend just happened to loan her
$4,000 that day, to help her make a credit card payment.
So on Tuesday, prosecutors brought that friend,
Cliff Carroll, a Coca-Cola contractor, to the
stand. And Williams, and the jury, heard Carroll
deny that he ever loaned her $4,000.
But the defense suggested that Carroll might have
forgotten the loan to Williams, and decided to
testify on Coke's behalf because Carroll didn't
want to lose the business he has with Coke.
Carroll insisted he never loaned Williams the
$4,000, would never forget such a loan.
Williams wrapped up her testimony by aggressively
attacking the prosecutor who was cross examining
her, accusing the prosecution of twisting and manipulating the truth.
"I know I didn't do it," she said. "I know."
Joya Williams was combative during the cross
examination, not docile and tearful as she was
during her direct examination on Monday.
The disbelieving prosecutor, Assistant U.S.
Attorney B. J. Pak, challenged Williams defense
that she had nothing to do with the conspiracy to
steal Coca Cola trade secrets when she worked for Coke in 2005 and 2006.
"You all twist everything people say and
manipulate it to make it go for your case,"
Williams accused Pak, in front of the jury.
"You're trying to twist" what she has said and
what witnesses against her have said, Williams told Pak several times.
Williams, and her two co-defendants who pleaded
guilty in October, each faces up to ten years in prison.
During Pak's cross examination of Williams, he
asked her, "You never talked to [co-defendants]
Dimson and Duhaney about selling any Coke secrets?"
"No," Williams replied, "I never talked to them
about selling any Coke secrets.
Edmund Duhaney was a family friend of Williams
who pleaded guilty to the conspiracy against
Coke. Duhaney testified last week that Williams
masterminded the scheme and recruited him to help
her sell the Coke trade secrets that he claimed
she had been taking from her office at Coke
headquarters. Ibrahim Dimson is the other
co-defendant who pleaded guilty to the
conspiracy. And Duhaney testified he recruited
Dimson for the scheme. Duhaney said he knew
Dimson because they had served time together in a federal prison.
Dimson is the one who met the undercover FBI
agent on June 16 and sold the agent a sample of a
new, top-secret Coca-Cola drink that Coke was
developing, and received $30,000 as the first installment on the deal.
Williams' defense is that Duhaney and Dimson must
have taken the Coke documents and drink samples
from her without her knowledge, for their
admitted conspiracy to sell trade secrets to Pepsi.
"I never noticed the Coke documents were gone,"
Williams told Pak, "really until you [federal
agents] busted through the door with your 30
guns" to arrest her on July 5, 2006.
"I'm hurt," Williams said at one point.
"Everybody hates me.... I respect Coke and I respect this system" of justice.
"I could have took the plea and just faced two
[years in prison], but I feel that strongly about
my innocence. I know I didn't do it. I know. I'm
sitting here risking the other eight [years in
prison]" to tell the truth, she said.
When Pak pointed out that Williams had $45,000 in
credit card debt, and before he could make a
point about how that might relate to the case
against her, Williams jumped in and said she's
been carrying that debt for several years. She
retorted, "I didn't suddenly say, 'Let's go steal
some documents to pay my credit card debt.' I
worked two and three jobs, and you know it."
Then Pak called Cliff Carroll, and asked Carroll
point-blank, "Prior to her arrest, did you ever give her $4,000 in cash?"
"No, Sir," Carroll replied.
Williams' attorney, Janice Singer, tried to
introduce a tape of a phone conversation between
Williams and Carroll just after Williams' arrest
in July. Williams was in the Fulton County Jail,
where all inmate phone calls are recorded.
The judge ruled Singer could not use the tape.
But Singer said that on the tape, Williams and
Carroll talked about the $4,000 loan, and Carroll
never disputed giving Williams the money.
Closing arguments are scheduled for Wednesday morning.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
World Class, Professional, Ethical, and Competent Bug Sweeps, and
Wiretap Detection using Sophisticated Laboratory Grade Test Equipment.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
James M. Atkinson Phone: (978) 546-3803
Granite Island Group Fax: (978) 546-9467
127 Eastern Avenue #291 Web:
http://www.tscm.com/
Gloucester, MA 01931-8008 E-mail: mailto:jm..._at_tscm.com
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We perform bug sweeps like it's a contact sport; we don't play fair, we
take no prisoners, and we give no quarter. Our goal is to stop the spy.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Received on Sat Mar 02 2024 - 00:57:15 CST