By Bill Poovey, Associated Press, 11/24/2002 14:53

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (AP) Meat-processing giant Tyson Foods Inc. is not backing down.

The Arkansas-based company, which paid a price four years ago for getting too cozy with the Clinton administration, is caught in a high-stakes, ''politically charged'' game of chicken with the Justice Department.

Eleven months ago, a federal grand jury indicted the company, two of its executives and four former managers on charges of conspiring to smuggle illegal immigrants from Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras to work in its poultry plants.

The government told Tyson it could avoid prosecution by paying a $100 million fine, company attorneys say. But Tyson calls the fine excessive and accuses the government of using undercover agents to entrap Tyson employees.

The deadline for plea agreements is Dec. 6, but attorneys on both sides don't expect any. Motions filed in Chattanooga earlier this month also indicate defense attorneys are prepared to go forward with a trial Feb. 4 rather than pay any fines. U.S. District Judge R. Allan Edgar expects the trial to last at least six weeks.

The stakes at trial could be high for the world's largest poultry, beef and pork processor. Tyson employs 120,000 workers and recorded sales of $25 billion last year.

Assistant U.S. Attorney John MacCoon said the government would have an expert witness assess the company's financial benefit from the alleged conspiracy, although he declined to provide an estimate.

Jay Barth, chairman of the Department of Politics at Hendrix College in Conway, Ark., said the government knows it has a case that will send the corporate world a message.

''If you go after the biggest fish then others will become aware of the risks of engaging in behaviors of this sort,'' he said.

The indictment implicated 15 Tyson plants in nine states Tennessee, Alabama, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Texas and Virginia as part of a conspiracy to defraud the government.

Prosecutors contend immigrants worked for lower wages than legal workers at Tyson's plants, allowing the company to cut costs and boost production. The company paid smugglers to transport at least 140 immigrants to its plants and provide them with false documents so they could work, prosecutors say.

For example, prosecutors say, a Tyson manager once told an undercover agent that the company would pay $200 for each ''illegal Mexican alien delivered.''

Government evidence includes undercover audiotapes and videotapes and subpoenaed company documents.

Tyson contends ''a few managers'' acted outside company policy at five of its 57 poultry processing plants. Three of those managers worked at a plant in Shelbyville, a rural town northwest of Chattanooga that is home to Tennessee's highest concentration of Hispanics.

Manager Jimmy Rowland, 36, committed suicide after the charges were made public. Former managers Spencer Mabe, 50, and Truley Ponder, 58 were charged along with Gerald Lankford, 63, of North Wilkesboro, N.C., a former human resources manager in the retail fresh division.

Robert Hash, 49, of Greenwood, Ark., vice president of the retail fresh division and Keith Snyder, 42, of Bella Vista, Ark., who worked as a manager at Shelbyville and Noel, Mo., remain on administrative leave from Tyson.

Amador Anchondo-Rascon, 43, a former Tyson employee who now owns a store in Shelbyville, has said Tyson managers asked him to supply and transport illegal immigrants to the plants and to provide the workers with fraudulent identification. Anchondo-Rascon made a deal with prosecutors and plans to testify at the trial in exchange for a lighter sentence.

Les Baledge, a Tyson vice president, pleaded innocent on the company's behalf in April. He and the other defendants are each free on $100,000 bonds.

Prosecutors have said a conviction on a charge of importing illegal immigrants for commercial advantage can carry a five-year mandatory minimum sentence, with no chance of parole. MacCoon said the maximum prison sentence for any defendant convicted on all 36 counts would be 395 years.

Michael Dougan, an Arkansas State University historian and author, described the case as ''politically charged,'' with the company's connections to Clinton while he was Arkansas governor and then its entanglement with Mike Espy, Clinton's former U.S. agriculture secretary.

Tyson was placed on probation in 1998 after pleading guilty to charges of providing illegal gifts to Espy. Espy was acquitted.

Clinton pardoned Tyson Foods executive Archie Schaffer III from a one-year jail term for illegally trying to influence Espy. Former Tyson lobbyist Jack L. Williams was pardoned on a conviction involving gifts.

The company was sentenced to pay $4 million in fines and another $2 million to help pay investigation costs.

''Tyson is a logical target,'' Dougan said. ''You could dig beneath the surface and find plenty.''

-- Anonymous, November 24, 2002

Answers

I hope they nail their hides to the wall. IBP and some of the hog confinements have been caught here in Iowa, but so far nothing to this extent (even though we all know that management is behind it).

-- Anonymous, November 25, 2002

egads! the health risks! did they at least check them for health issues before allowing them to handle the food?

-- Anonymous, November 25, 2002

I'm with Beckie. Make an example of this firm, and then go after other companies of this ilk.

The American worker deserves (a) a job, vs. giving it to an illegal, and (b) decent working conditions, which is a main reason for hiring illegals, they won't complain.

-- Anonymous, November 25, 2002