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Starkist Inc., to be sentenced in May 2019 in federal case

StarKist canning plant in American Samoa
fili@samoanews.com

Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — StarKist Inc., as a defendant, is scheduled for sentencing during the middle of next year at the federal court in San Francisco, California after the company entered a guilty plea for its role in a conspiracy to fix prices of packaged seafood sold in the U.S, according to court records.

The US Justice Department had announced last month that StarKist has agreed to a guilty plea for its role and this was also confirmed by StarKist in a statement. No date was given, at the time, as to when the defendant would appear in court.

A one-count felony charge accuses StarKist and its co-conspirators of agreeing to fix the prices of canned tuna fish between November 2011 and December 2013. StarKist, which faces a criminal fine of up to $100 million, has agreed to cooperate in the investigation conducted by a federal grand jury in San Francisco.

Defendant StarKist Inc., appeared Nov. 14th for arraignment and change of plea hearing before US District Court Judge Edward M. Chen, who accepted the guilty plea and set sentencing for May 22, 2019.

The plea agreement between the defendant and federal prosecutor is already filed in court but not available yet for public review. Also filed with the agreement is an Attachment A document by the prosecutor - who requested and the court granted - the motion to seal it.

In its motion to seal the Attachment, prosecutors explained that part of the document  “identifies any individual who is excluded from the plea agreement’s cooperation obligations and non-prosecution protections because the government has reason to believe any such individual was involved in criminal wrongdoing and is a potential target of the government’s investigation”.

Prosecutors argue that publicly revealing the names of any individual in Attachment A of the plea agreement can be viewed as an accusation that such individual engaged in criminal conduct, even though any such individual has not been charged and has no forum in which to proclaim his innocence or seek exoneration.