Produce Firm to Pay $300,000 in Bid-Rigging on Potato Sale

A Los Angeles produce firm was ordered to pay $300,000 in restitution and criminal fines after pleading no contest Friday to a felony charge stemming from a bid-rigging scheme in the sale of $1.25-million worth of potatoes and onions to the Los Angeles County government.

J. Hellman Produce Inc. is the first firm to be successfully prosecuted for a criminal antitrust conspiracy under the state’s 1976 antitrust law, according to Deputy Dist. Atty. Thomas Papageorge, who prosecuted the case. The sentence, of which $116,000 goes for criminal fines, was imposed by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert T. Altman.

Max Janis, 69, sales manager for Hellman, also pleaded no contest to the same charge and was sentenced to 250 hours of community service.

Four other defendants--Potato Sales Co. and its president Jack Berlin, and Progressive Produce Co. and its former part owner Arlin C. Inman Jr., are scheduled to go to trial next February.

The defendants were charged in March, 1984, with conspiring to win bids for potato and onion contracts on a rotating basis. County officials estimated that the scheme cost the county between $150,000 and $300,000 between 1980 and 1983. The county purchased the produce for its departments that offer food service.