Espy Trial Details Tyson Party
And Speech Arranged As "Cover"

WASHINGTON — There was little talk of business at a lavish party that former Clinton administration Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy attended as a guest of Tyson Foods Inc., the company's top executive claims. Another witness in Espy’s corruption trial bolsters the prosecution’s contention that a speaking engagement Espy attended earlier that day was a cobbled-up excuse to justify his presence at the party.

With music by Ronnie Milsap and B.B. King, the 1993 party "was for purely one reason — to have fun and get drunk," John Tyson testified last Friday at Espy's federal corruption trial.

Tyson's father, Don Tyson, played host at a company compound in Russellville, Ark. Don Tyson, the senior chairman of the nation's largest chicken producer, also picked the entertainment and much of the guest list, John Tyson testified Friday.

John Tyson, 45, who this month became chairman of the $6 billion company, did not talk business with Espy that weekend, he claimed. Nor, to his knowledge, did his father, the younger Tyson said.

"Dad never mixes drinking with business," Tyson said. "Dad's a serious business guy and a serious drinker. He does both of them well."

Espy's then-girlfriend, Patricia Dempsey, was also a guest at the party, and flew to Arkansas at company expense.

Prosecutors contend that Tyson Foods wined and dined Espy in 1993 and 1994, at a time when the chicken company was concerned about new food handling and labeling regulations.

Espy, 44, has pleaded innocent to 38 charges of taking about $35,000 in illegal corporate gifts and allegedly trying to cover it up. He resigned at the end of 1994, after Independent Counsel Donald Smaltz began investigating him. He faces a minimum of three years in prison if convicted of the most serious charges.

Tyson Foods is allegedly responsible for about $12,000 in pro football tickets, plane rides, limousine rides and other entertainment and gifts, including $6000 worth of tickets to a presidential inaugural dinner in 1993. The company also funded a $1200 scholarship for Ms. Dempsey.

Prosecutors have focused on the Russellville weekend as an example of Espy's alleged willingness to party on someone else's dime. They do not have to prove Espy did the company any favors in return, and indeed he did not go along with Tyson's recommendations on a complicated set of rules about new food labels.

John Tyson's colorful testimony also included a frank discussion of his own losing fight to drugs and alcohol in the 1980s, and his subsequent attempts to repair his image and his relationship with his powerful father.

"The only reason I was on the payroll was because I was the son of the boss," Tyson said. "At any other company I would have been thrown to the wolves."

Tyson said he has been clean since 1990, but it took years for him to fully regain trust and responsibility within the company.

His disengagement from the workings of the company led to a temporary setback for Smaltz, who has investigated Espy and Tyson for four years.

Smaltz wanted the firm's top executive to tell the jury how Tyson Foods pleaded guilty last year to giving Espy illegal gifts and agreed to pay a $6 million fine in a case that covered much of the same ground.

But the judge ruled that John Tyson was not closely involved in the plea decisions and could not in effect stand in for his father.

Prosecutors have not said whether they will call Don Tyson. Prosecutors could use other witnesses to introduce the Tyson guilty plea.

Espy's defense lawyers claim he never knowingly took illegal gifts and that others lied to him about the source of some corporate largesse.

On Tuesday, jurors heard a somewhat different take on the party story. Espy spoke to a poultry group earlier on the day of the party, and Smaltz contended the speaking engagement was a "cover" to justify his being there.

One of the organizers of that affair bolstered Smaltz’s depiction of events by confirming that it was hastily arranged around Espy’s presence.

The meeting, of the Arkansas Poultry Federation, "was designed specifically because I had been made aware that (Espy) would be available," testified Donald Allen, executive vice president for the industry group.

Allen was uncertain how he learned that Espy "would be available," but thought the information came from Don Tyson.

Allen was also unable to explain how Espy’s invitation to speak bore a postmark from Russellville, Ark. — home of the Tyson headquarters — rather than a postmark from Little Rock, where the Poultry Federation does its mailing.

Once he learned of Espy’s availability, Allen testified, he hastily put together a group of about 20 people to listen to the address in a college cafeteria.

Smaltz contends the speaking engagement was concocted to allow Espy to portray the trip as official business.