Woman convicted of selling Coke secrets to Pepsi

MIAMI, AFP - A former Coca Cola employee was sentenced on Wednesday to eight years in jail for trying to steal company secrets and sell them to arch-rival Pepsi Cola, in a case that had the trappings of a cloak-and-dagger spy caper.

Prosecutors said the sentence reflected the increasingly critical need to protect US companies intellectual property.

A US judge in Atlanta, Georgia, sentenced former Coca Cola administrative assistant Joya Williams, 43, to eight years in prison, and co-conspirator Ibrahim Dimson, 31, to five years. Another co-defendant, Edmund Duhaney, 43, is to be sentenced at a later date.

Williams and Dimson were each ordered to pay 40,000 dollars in restitution to the Atlanta-based Coca Coca.

After the three were arrested in July, Duhaney and Dimson pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate in the case against Williams.

The jury found Williams guilty in February after hearing of secret documents being spirited away, a cash pay-off being made in a Girl Scout cookie box.