A former Coca-Cola employee has been sentenced to eight years in prison for trying to sell secret fizzy drink recipes to rivals Pepsi for $1.5 million.

Joya Williams, 42, secretary to Coca-Cola’s global brand director at the company’s headquarters in Atlanta, was sentenced yesterday.

She was found guilty of stealing recipes and details of products that Coca-Cola have not yet launched. When she approached Pepsi with her illicit information, they foiled her plot and called in the FBI.

Federal officers launched an undercover operation and found that a letter to the world’s second favourite cola company was written by Williams’ co-defendant Ibrahim Dimson. In the letter, posted in May 2006, Coca-Cola’s secrets were available to the “highest bidder”.

Security video showed Williams stuffing files into her bags and taking a container of a Coca-Cola product sample.

The judge felt the beverage felony was so serious that he ignored the sentencing guidelines and imposed an eight-year custodial sentence for Williams and a five-year jail term for Dimson.

“This is the kind of offence that cannot be tolerated in our society,” said J. Owen Forrester, US District Judge. “I can’t think of another case in 25 years that there’s been so much obstruction of justice.”

Williams had pleaded not guilty in the trial in February, but yesterday she was full of contrition.

“I just wanted to say that I’m not a bad person, I’m really not,” she said. “I am sorry to Coke and I’m sorry to my boss and to you and to my family as well.”

Coca-Cola thanked Pepsi for its help. The company said that its secret formula, containing the ingredient “7X”, was never at risk.

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