Coca-Cola trade secrets theft case set for trial

updated 2:06 p.m. ET Oct. 10, 2006

ATLANTA - A federal court Tuesday set trial in November for three people charged with conspiring to steal trade secrets from The Coca-Cola Co. and trying to sell the material to rival PepsiCo Inc.

The jury trial before U.S. District Judge J. Owen Forrester will be called during a two-week period starting Nov. 13, according to a notice signed by a courtroom deputy clerk. There are two other cases on the calendar before Forrester for that period, and the notice indicates the Coca-Cola case will be tried third.

The trial involving the defendants in the Coca-Cola case is expected to last seven days, the notice says.

Lawyers for the defendants did not immediately return calls Tuesday seeking comment. They won't be excused from the trial calendar call unless they are handling another trial or their clients enter guilty pleas before the trial, the notice says.

Joya Williams, Ibrahim Dimson and Edmund Duhaney were indicted July 11 on a federal conspiracy charge that accuses them of stealing new product samples and confidential documents from Atlanta-based Coca-Cola and trying to sell them to Purchase, N.Y.-based Pepsi.

The alleged crime was foiled after Pepsi warned Coca-Cola. The three defendants have pleaded not guilty.

The prosecution says a box containing two undisclosed Coca-Cola product samples and other confidential company documents was found in Duhaney's home during a search on July 5, the day all three were arrested and the same day a $1.5 million transaction was to occur. Documents were also found in Williams' home.

Coke has declined to say what product or products the samples relate to.

Williams, who has since been fired as an administrative assistant for Coke's global brand director at its Atlanta headquarters, allegedly took the information from the company and gave it to Dimson and Duhaney.

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