Are You Disposed Toward Corruption?
posted by Dave Hoffman
A reader passes along an interesting white collar crime story. In the latest development of an (apparently) long-running federal investigation,
Scott Salyer, president and chief executive officer of SK Foods, Monterey, Calif., a food processor and the parent company of Salyer American Fresh Foods Inc., is accused of allegedly encouraging New Jersey-based broker Randall Rahal to offer bribes to its customers’ buyers over a four-year period.Federal Bureau of Investigation special agent Paul Artley filed an affidavit Aug. 14 in U.S. District Court in Sacramento, Calif., supporting the government’s April 16 seizure of nearly $600,000 held in the name of Rahal’s company, Intramark USA Inc., from two of his accounts in the Vineland, N.J. branch of Sun National Bank. The document alleges he used the accounts to bribe buyers from a number of food companies.
I tracked down that affidavit. A highlight, from my perspective, comes in paragraph 23:
“Witness #1 stated RAHAL told Witness #1 and others that he identifies the customers that he can get to take bribes by dropping a $100 bill and picking it up and saying, ‘You must have dropped this, is it yours?; If the individual says ‘yes,’ RAHAL knows that they are open to a ‘business offer.’ Witness #1 understood ‘business offer’ to mean bribe.”
There are other juicy bits, as this storynotes, including this one:
In one phone conversation between Salyer and Rahal, the broker tells the SK chief a buyer is “gonna need a retirement program. So, it’s a perfect fit for me.”Salyer asks, “How fast are you going to reel in that fish?”
Rahal, referring to a dinner meeting he has set up with the buyer, says, “Probably by the time the coffee comes.”
An enthusiastic Salyer replies, “I want that sucker on speed reel.”
Apart from the local color, the story is interesting because it goes to the heart of the situationalist v. dispositionalist explanation of criminality so often discussed over at The Situationalist. Were the folks who accepted Rahal’s bribes disposed toward corruption, or did his temptation make them act in ways they never otherwise would have? It’s a question that bears on our attributional assumptions and the ways we punish. For what it’s worth, I suspect that Rahal’s test is one that many, many of us would fail.
(Image Source: Wikicommons)
August 23, 2008 at 6:11 pm
Posted in: Behavioral Law and Economics, Consumer Protection Law, Corporate Law, Criminal Law, Securities
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Responses (1)
asdf - August 29, 2008 at 10:25 am
If by “we” you mean other conservatives, then I’d agree, and be borne out in that agreement by the sad history of public service we’ve witnessed over the past eight years.
If you mean by “we” you mean the majority of citizens, I’m afraid you’re projecting.
But no one has to drop 100 bucks in your path now; they already know.
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