Keith president testifies

The dramatic videotaped testimony was presented on the third day of a multimillion-dollar civil trial mounted by 10 people who contracted botulism after eating tainted frozen chili.

The food's maker, First Original Texas Chili Co. of Fort Worth, and Town Talk Foods, which sold it, have joined in the suit. The parties are jointly suing Keith, also of Fort Worth, for its alleged role in the August 2001 outbreak.

Keith blames Town Talk.

In the taped deposition, Keith President Mike Roach repeatedly denied "selling" rejected frozen products to Town Talk but saw no contradiction in admitting that Ben E. Keith accepted money from the discount grocer for pallets of "salvaged" items.

"It's not a sale," Roach insisted emphatically, instead calling the transaction "salvage."

His image was projected several times life size before a jury of 12 people and three alternates.

The executive sat silently between his attorneys below the screen as the tape was played.

Roach, 61, who heads one of the region's biggest food-service distributors with more than $1 billion in annual sales, said Keith was not obligated to inform "salvage" dealers like Town Talk that the frozen food had been thawed, rejected for smelling bad and refrozen by a restaurant.

It is Town Talk's responsibility to determine on its own whether any item is safe, Roach said.

Town Talk, a licensed salvage dealer, maintains that it properly handled the frozen chili at its end and was never told that it had been rejected.

Roach confirmed that he knew that food rejected by customers and unwittingly picked up by Town Talk would end up being sold to the public.

If he ran Town Talk, Roach conceded he would want to know whether the goods being bought were fit for human consumption.

Asked whether he saw any difference between Keith throwing refrozen chili into a trash bin and "salvaging" it for money to Town Talk, Roach replied: "No, there's not."

Town Talk's attorney, R. Wayne Gordon, asked whether Roach knew why Ben E. Keith would not inform Town Talk that the chili had been thawed, refrozen and returned from a customer who said it "smelled really bad."

"I can't think of any reason," Roach answered.

"Is there any excuse for Ben E. Keith not telling Town Talk that?" Gordon asked.

"No," Roach replied.

At the end of the videotaped testimony played by the plaintiffs, Judge Bob McGrath turned down defense attorney Jennifer Aufricht's request to put Roach on the witness stand to elaborate at this point in the trial.

Earlier, John Burks, Keith's returns manager, testified that the distributor no longer resold frozen or otherwise perishable items sent back by a food-service customer. Such products are now thrown away or compacted, Burks said.