BUSINESS
December 9, 1985
An estimated $17 million in overpayments to members of Sun-Diamond Growers of California may involve fraud, the cooperative's vice chairman said. "There appears to be some misrepresentation of figures, and we suspect it could be fraud," William Hosie said. The controller and shelling superintendent at Diamond Walnut Growers in Stockton have been placed on paid suspension.
BUSINESS
May 14, 1997 | (Reuters)
Sun-Diamond Growers of California was fined $1.5 million by a federal court for giving illegal gifts to President Clinton's former Agriculture secretary, Mike Espy. Pleasanton-based Sun-Diamond, the nation's largest fruit cooperative, also was put on a five-year probation, during which the company has to make regular reports to the court to ensure it does not again break federal gratuity laws.
BUSINESS
December 14, 1996 | Times Staff and Wire Reports
The U.S. Department of Agriculture said that the nation's largest growers of raisins, prunes and other dried fruits and nuts should be banned from selling to the government because their cooperative made illegal gifts to former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy. The proposed ban would bar cooperatives affiliated with Sun-Diamond Growers of California from selling to the military, federal prisons, school lunch and feeding programs for up to three years.
BUSINESS
March 21, 1998 | Bloomberg News
An appeals court set aside the $1.5-million criminal fine levied on Sun-Diamond Growers of California for giving gifts to former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy. The court upheld four related convictions. Sun-Diamond's 1996 fine arose from the probe by independent counsel Donald C. Smaltz into gifts that large agribusinesses gave Espy when he was President Clinton's secretary of Agriculture.