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# Food poisoning at grocery store leaves bad taste in judge’s mouth
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/food-poisoning-at-grocery-store-leaves-bad-taste-in-judges-mouth/
- Published: 2005-04-04T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T06:32:31.000Z
- Author: Ryan Hyatt
- Tags: Crime, Mid-City, #archive-import

*Extortionist gets five years for threatening to poison baby food at Ralphs*

MID-CITY — A local man has been sentenced to five years in federal prison for putting boric acid and glass shards in baby food products at a Ralphs Grocery store in Santa Monica, then demanding $180,000 to prevent the tampered food from being placed on shelves.

David Dickinson, 43, a British national and resident of Venice, was arrested in May of 2004 after stopping at the Santa Monica Ralphs on Cloverfield Boulevard to retrieve a debit card tied to an account set up for him with the extortion money, authorities said.

Dickinson was sentenced Friday in Los Angeles by United States District Judge Dean D. Pregerson. Facing 25 years in prison, Dickinson pleaded guilty in November of 2004 to charges of extortion and tampering with consumer products. At the time of his arrest, Dickinson said he blackmailed Ralphs because he needed money for his 5-month-old son’s college education.

Judge Pregerson on Friday said he found Dickinson’s scheme sophisticated and said he thought the contaminated baby food was used to invoke a greater sense of panic, according court documents. Judge Pregerson said the extortion scheme was a “close cousin to terrorism, threatening to tamper with the food supply.”

Court documents show that Dickinson sent four tampered food items to Ralphs’ corporate headquarters on Feb. 25, 2004\. The package contained a note which said, “This is a blackmail demand pass to persons able to deal with such matter. Keep out.”

In addition to the poisoned baby formula, the package contained a jar of horseradish contaminated with boric acid, a jar of baby food with glass shards and an infant juice drink laced with hydraulic fluid.

While Dickinson threatened to place contaminated and dangerous food products on store shelves, there is no evidence that he actually followed through on the threat. However, in the letter to Ralphs, Dickinson demanded money and stated that failure to follow the demands would result in a wide range of tampered foods being placed into the food supply.

On March 1, 2004, Dickinson sent a second letter to Ralphs’ headquarters, according to a plea agreement he made with prosecutors. In the letter, he demanded $180,000 be placed into an account and Ralphs distribute 9,000 debit cards that could be used to access the account.

Dickinson demanded the debit cards be distributed to Ralphs customers in Santa Monica, San Diego and San Ramon. He also demanded an advertisement for a German tuba be placed in the March 25, 2004, Los Angeles Recycler, a regional publication for classified advertisements. He instructed that the ATM pin number to access the $180,000 be listed in the ad as the tuba’s model number.

Ralphs began distributing the 9,000 debit cards on the afternoon of March 26, 2004\. Dickinson made a small purchase in Ralphs, and he received a debit card.

A surveillance team at the Santa Monica Ralphs spotted a man on a bicycle who fit the description of Dickinson, who had been identified from a video at the Venice Post Office where Dickinson mailed the original package.

On May 5 of 2004, special agents with the FBI searched Dickinson’s home, at which time they found a yellow jacket and other clothing items he was wearing when he mailed the tainted food products to Ralphs. Investigators also found drafts of the extortion letter on his computer.

The case was handled jointly by the FBI and the Food and Drug Administration, which received help from the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 4, 2005.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/040405.pdf?ref=smdp.com)