How Frederick Scott Salyer went from ‘tomato king’ to jail cell inmate

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Scott Salyer stepped into the federal courtroom in Sacramento, his trim frame swimming in an orange prisoner jumpsuit, his legs shackled, his wrists restrained.

It was a humiliating moment in February for the 54-year-old agribusiness mogul, the last prince of one of California’s cotton farming dynasties. The tomato processing outfit he started with his father, Fred Salyer, was in bankruptcy. Scott was being blamed for running SK Foods into the ground -- and far worse.

Salyer clenched his jaw as the prosecutor reeled off the allegations: that he and SK Foods tricked supermarkets and big food companies into buying substandard tomato products to put into brands found in almost every American cupboard. Read the rest of the story.