• The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Tuesday, January 23, 2007 1:15 PM

The trial of former Coca-Cola marketing department secretary Joya Williams opened in Atlanta yesterday, with federal prosecutors laying out their case that she conspired with two accomplices to try to sell product samples and confidential documents for more than $1 million.

Prosecutors say the plot started in November 2005, when Williams showed family friend Edmond Duhaney stacks of documents from Coke. She told Duhaney she couldn't sell the documents because she signed a confidentiality agreement, but that Duhaney could. Duhaney, a convicted cocaine dealer, shopped the documents around, but no one was interested until he reached Ibrahim Dimson, a man he had met in prison in Alabama.

According to prosecutors, an executive at archrival PepsiCo then got a letter in May 2006 from someone named "Dirk" (Dimson), who said he had four years' worth of detailed marketing records from Coke.

Williams' defense attorney says her client copied and took home various work materials for innocent reasons and never intended for them to fall into the hands of the alleged accomplices.

Read the whole story at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution »