Instead of sour grapes, it’s rotten tomatoes, stemming from

a national antitrust case in Sacramento federal court that has been percolating for 2½ years. Salyer, scion of a legendary California agribusiness family, is the target of a 65-page indictment that could send him to prison for 20 years. It accuses him of operating his Monterey-based SK Foods LP as a racketeering enterprise.

The government investigated for nearly five years before charging the food magnate with a bribery and price-fixing scheme that officials say inflated the cost of canned tomatoes, salsa and ketchup nationwide.

Prosecutors have amassed more than 1 million documents and 100 hours of surreptitious recordings, and they fought to keep Salyer in jail rather than allow him out on bail.

Thrilling?  Not quite?  This is the sort of stuff that makes corporate criminal practice perpetually fascinating, where canned tomatores and salsa are worth a five year investigation, wiretaps and a million documents.  What? You thought our government was expending all its resources on protecting us from terrorists?

But after all this, the last thing the government wants is for the defendant, tomato king Frederick Scott Salyer, to beat them.  Enter John Keker.

John Keker, a 67-year-old San Francisco attorney whose 41 years of practice have included some of the most notable cases of the past few decades, secured a judge’s order last week to join Salyer’s legal team.

His involvement is a significant – and pricey – step for Salyer, 55, who has been under house arrest in his walled Pebble Beach estate since September, when his sister and friends put up $6 million in bail money and property to win his release from the Sacramento County jail.

Keker, who reportedly bills his clients at a $900-an-hour clip, told The Bee it would not be appropriate for him to talk publicly about the Salyer case.

While Salyer’s legal team, led by Malcolm Segal, was impressive before, it takes big guns to handle the absoutely huge volume of crap the government is piling on this prosecution.  Keker can handle it, and the government knows it, which is why the government fought its little governmental heart out to keep Keker off the case.

They fought just as ardently to keep Keker out of the case, charging that his law firm’s representation of an executive in Salyer’s now-defunct company creates a conflict of interest.

The executive, Mark S. Grewal, the former president of Salyer’s SK Foods, has not been charged, but prosecutors insist he is a potential government witness when the case goes to trial.

Anna Pletcher, an attorney in the San Francisco office of the U.S. Department of Justice’s antitrust division, argued the motion to disqualify Keker.

“The government would be honored to face the Keker firm in a trial in the Salyer case,” but Grewal’s situation presents an insurmountable conflict, she told U.S. District Judge Lawrence K. Karlton.

There is no right of a defendants which the government holds in higher esteem than the right of unconflicted counsel.  In fact, there’s no other right they care much about at all.  For this reason, the government’s heartfelt concerns over Keker’s potential conflict, because a former firm client is a potential witness is a deeply moving, highly significant, demonstration of the government’s concern for the defendant’s welfare.  So Keker responded:

“Are you kidding me?” Keker asked the judge rhetorically.

That just about covers it.  Judge Karlton ruled in kind:

Karlton rejected Pletcher’s argument last week, saying, “I believe that the government has got nothing but altruism motivating its motion, and its deep concern with fairness for Mr. Salyer. I believe that, but I also believe in the tooth fairy.

“It seems to me the government is looking to avoid granting Mr. Salyer the best possible defense that he can have. That he can afford Mr. Keker is impressive all by itself … ” the judge said, adding that Salyer is ending up with “either the best or close to the best white collar defense team in the world.”

As defense lawyers, we aspire to do right by our clients and well by posterity.  Validation of our efforts isn’t always easy to come by, as outcomes don’t necessarily correlate with our efforts or skills.  For this reason, there are few things that will make a lawyer feel better than to know that the government will bend over backwards, do or say almost anything, to get you off the case. 

There’s nothing better than knowing you scare them more than they scare you.

H/T Billy