Suspended Tyson Foods CFO John R. Tyson pleaded not guilty on Monday following charges including driving while intoxicated and careless driving.
The 34-year-old son of the company’s chairman was arrested June 13 by University of Arkansas police.
A police officer saw Tyson swerve his silver SUV onto a curb and grass while making an improper U-turn, a police report said. Tyson’s eyes seemed bloodshot and his breath smelled of intoxicants, according to the report.
The Arkansas-based meat manufacturing giant immediately suspended the fourth-generation Tyson and made finance executive Curt Calaway the interim CFO.
His trial is set for late August, according to the Fayetteville District Court.
Tyson Foods did not respond to requests for comment.
This is not the first time the founder’s great-grandson – who made a name for himself in October 2022 when he became the youngest CFO of a Fortune 500 company – has brought Tyson Foods trouble.
He was arrested on November 6, 2022 at 1:32 a.m. ET on charges of public intoxication and trespassing after Arkansas police found him half-naked in a college-aged woman’s house, passed out in a bed, the record said.
The woman called police to report a potential burglary after she discovered “a male she did not know asleep in her bed,” the police report said.
Local police described an odor of intoxicants on Tyson’s breath and his movements as “sluggish and uncoordinated.”
Authorities said tests showed his blood alcohol level at twice the legal limit.
The scandal was recorded on police body cam footage and released by TMZ and other outlets.
The Tyson heir – a former JPMorgan investment banker and Ivy League alum with degrees from Harvard and Stanford – initially pleaded not guilty in that case, but later pleaded guilty and agreed to pay a $440 fine.
