Informant (36 page)

Allison could not believe what he was hearing. He knew about the price-fixing meetings—he had already attended a regional meeting himself. But few others in the room had been told about them. And there was no way Whitacre could have obtained the numbers without breaking the law. Such quarterly production figures were not even disclosed to company investors, much less competitors. It was clear evidence that price-fixing was taking place.

Glancing up, Allison eyed the other executives in the room. All of them—Richter, Hulse, and six others—were staring at each other in amazement. The room was filled with seasoned sales professionals, and none of them had ever seen anything like this before.

“Now,’’ Whitacre said, “I’m not handing out copies of this, ’cause I don’t want them going around. But go ahead and take notes if you want.’’

The executives wrote down the once-secret numbers from ADM’s competitors. No one objected; no one expressed discomfort at participating in a crime.

And no one from the FBI knew that this was happening.

The length of the Bahnhofstrasse in Zurich was jammed with shoppers marveling at store windows that beckoned with Sprungli chocolates, Cartier watches, and Tiffany jewelry. The road opened up at the Paradeplatz, the erstwhile parade ground that serves as the town square. There, a uniformed employee held open the door of the Savoy Baur en Ville, one of Switzerland’s most elegant hotels. Whitacre emerged from the lobby, nodding his thanks.

Whitacre had arrived in Zurich the day before, October 24, in preparation for the next lysine price-fixing meeting, scheduled to be held that afternoon at the Dolder Grand Hotel. This time, there would be no recording, and neither Shepard nor Herndon had accompanied him. The meeting today was little more than another update on the conspiracy; a briefing from Whitacre would be ample evidence. For once, Whitacre was alone. He could do as he pleased.

Outside, Whitacre watched a train headed to Zurich’s central railway station. Close by, a church bell tolled the hour. It was 10:00 in the morning. Whitacre picked up his pace as he headed toward a building on the edge of the Paradeplatz. The Zurich office of the Swiss Bank Corporation. His destination.

Whitacre headed briskly into the lobby. A hall porter dressed in a topcoat stood nearby.

“Guten Morgen,’’
Whitacre said to the porter.
“Ich möchte Herr Briel finden, bitte.’’

The porter pointed toward an elevator.
“Herr Briel ist nach oben am vierten Stock,’’
he said.

Whitacre nodded.
“Danke schön.’’

As instructed, Whitacre headed across the lobby to the elevators, then pushed the button for the fourth floor. There, he approached a receptionist.

“Guten Tag,’’
he said.
“Wie geht es Ihnen? Ich suche Herr Briel, bitte.’’

The receptionist gestured toward a chair.
“Nehmen Sie Platz, bitte,’’
she said.

Whitacre eased into the rich leather chair in front of the receptionist’s desk. He watched as she walked back toward the bank offices. In a moment, she returned, followed by a young, clean-cut man with brown hair and a wide smile. Whitacre had never seen the man before but knew this must be Daniel Briel.

“Mr. Whitacre,’’ the young man said enthusiastically as he extended a hand.

Whitacre stood, flashing a smile as he clasped Briel’s hand.
“Jawohl. Guten Morgen, Herr Briel. Wie geht es Ihnen?’’

“Gut, gut,’’
Briel said, inwardly wincing at Whitacre’s pronunciation.
“Wie geht’s? Gut daβ wir uns eben getroffen haben.’’

Whitacre nodded, smiling.

Together, the two men headed back to a private area, toward a windowless office. Whitacre walked in, taking a seat. Briel quietly closed the office’s heavy wooden door. No one outside the room could hear them. Their conversation wouldn’t take long.

The news Whitacre brought back from Switzerland was incredible: The lysine conspirators wanted to meet again in the United States, this time in Atlanta.

At a meeting in Springfield, Whitacre told Shepard and Herndon that the others had been spooked by news of a price-fixing investigation of European cement manufacturers. Jacques Chaudret was particularly worried, saying he would not meet again without the cover of an industry meeting. Everyone agreed. The next such meeting was a mid-January poultry convention in Atlanta. Most of the executives were already scheduled to attend and agreed that it would be safe to hold a price-fixing meeting there.

The prospect of another American meeting set off an enormous debate among the antitrust team. Since they already had the evidence against the foreign nationals—but might not be able to extradite them later—should they all be arrested in Atlanta?

Quick arrests presented big problems: Indictments would have to be handed up within weeks. The prosecutors would have little time to use the grand jury as an investigative tool. Making it worse, once the executives were indicted, they could insist on a speedy trial. That could leave the government hanging—a thousand pages of tape transcripts were yet to be typed. The prosecutors could be forced to go to trial without being fully prepared.

The realities forced the decision: The foreign lysine competitors would be allowed to leave the United States. But the debate underscored the need to begin massive transcription efforts. Right away.

Ginger Whitacre descended the staircase at her Moweaqua home, listening as rain drummed loudly on the roof. A fierce weekend thunderstorm had just blown in, and it sounded particularly vicious. Strolling through the living room, Ginger wondered where Mark was. Despite all their years together, Ginger found that she no longer understood her husband. Something in him had changed, something had been lost.

It wasn’t just his frequent absences anymore, or his repeated failure to attend family events or to just come home for dinner. Those aspects of his behavior had almost become accepted in the household as a given. But now, even when he was home, he wasn’t completely there. Mark seemed to be drifting through his family, with the detachment of a commuter waiting for a train to take him away.

But there was more. Ginger didn’t understand it, but Mark had just become
weird
. Over the summer, they had built horse stables across the street, and Ginger loved to relax with an occasional ride. But Mark would disappear to the stables for hours, often not returning until 2:00 in the morning. Usually he would come home saying that he had been brushing the horses.
Brushing horses for three or four hours?
Then, a few hours later, he would head for work. It just wasn’t normal. He seemed to be getting almost no sleep.

Ginger was getting ready to call out Mark’s name when she heard a gas-powered engine turn on outside.

“Oh, no!’’ she said, walking over to the window.

Mark’s other obsession. He had been leaning on their gardener to keep every leaf off the driveway. It was no easy task—the leaves from a two-hundred-year-old walnut tree covered the property in the fall. But Mark couldn’t stand them there, ever.

Ginger reached the window and looked outside.

Wind and rain rustled the walnut tree, sending leaves cascading onto the driveway. Waiting there with a leaf blower in hand was Mark. The rain soaked him as he aimed the blower at the sopping-wet leaves. Puddles of water blew into droplets as clumps of leaves tumbled off the driveway. A flash of lightning lit the sky. Mark kept working, dripping wet.

Ginger closed her eyes, feeling frightened and helpless. What in the world was wrong with him? What was happening to her husband?

•   •   •

In October of 1994, the Antitrust Division was making plans for how to handle the criminal trial of ADM. Raids of the company were expected in a matter of months, but the lawyers needed for the case were still not in place. The Chicago antitrust office did not even have a permanent chief. On top of that, while Robin Mann was talented, she was not among the division’s most experienced litigators.

At that time, a prosecutor named James Griffin was returning to his job as Deputy Chief of the Atlanta antitrust office, having just wrapped up a stint as an American advisor on legal issues to the Hungarian government. A quiet, open-faced man with a full head of white hair, Griffin was an unusual mix of refined and rowdy. Few in the office would have guessed that Griffin, with his soft-spoken manner, could often be found at home, cranking up the latest grunge-rock music on his stereo. He seemed an unlikely person to be one of the Antitrust Division’s top litigators.

Griffin was settling back in at his eleventh-floor office in the Atlanta federal courthouse when a call came from Washington. A receptionist told him that it was Joseph Widmar, Deputy Assistant Attorney General in charge of all criminal prosecutions in the Antitrust Division. Griffin picked up the phone.

After some idle conversation about the trip to Hungary, Widmar got to the point.

“I want to talk to you about our chief opening in Chicago,’’ he said.

“Yeah, I understand that’s open.’’

“I want you to consider it.’’

“Why?’’ Griffin asked. He was happy in Atlanta. Plus, he had once experienced a Chicago winter and wasn’t too eager to live through that again.

Widmar spent some time describing the advantages of becoming an office chief. But, he stressed, the Chicago office offered some particularly appealing benefits. There were important cases going on there, Widmar said, and the division would want Griffin to play a hands-on role in those.

Griffin listened, intrigued. He knew about the cases; the division was small enough that it was easy to hear about promising cases in the pipeline. He was particularly interested in the ADM investigation. The chance to play a role in a case of that magnitude was attractive. He was sorely tempted and told Widmar that he would think about the offer. It would not be long before he accepted.

•   •   •

About the same day Widmar placed his call to Griffin, an aggressive young lawyer in the Chicago antitrust office was preparing to go to trial.

Jim Mutchnik, who had just turned thirty a few weeks before, had been working for about two years on an investigation of potential bid rigging at a Kansas City shopping mall. It had been a blast. He had traveled to Kansas City, working side by side with an FBI agent. Together, they found witnesses and recorded conversations among the targets of the investigation. Some targets had cut deals. Now, the trial of the remaining defendant was scheduled to begin in a few weeks. Even though Mutchnik had to get ready, no one expected the case to go to a jury. The defendant, whose health was failing, was sure to plead it out. The evidence against him was too overwhelming.

Mutchnik was typing on his computer, his back to the office door, when he heard a voice behind him.

“Hey, do you have a minute?’’

Mutchnik turned in his chair. Marvin Price, the acting chief of the office, walked in and took a seat.

“Listen, Jim, it looks like your case might go away and you’re going to need something to do,’’ Price said. “I want to see about getting you involved in the Grains case.’’

Mutchnik recognized
Grains
as the division’s odd internal code name—short for
Grains and Field Beans
—for the ADM case. He had heard bits and pieces about it from Robin Mann.

“It’s a good case,’’ Price said. “And it needs your help. You’ve obviously done a lot of work with the FBI. It’s got tapes and you’ve done all that. Robin needs another person on the case.’’

Mutchnik nodded. This was just the kind of assignment he wanted.

“That sounds great, Marvin,’’ he said.

Soon, Mann heard that Mutchnik had joined the case and came to see him. As she described the investigation, not a lot registered with Mutchnik. It was just a bunch of names and places. He was going to need to review the voluminous case records.

But now, a full team of antitrust prosecutors was finally forming for Harvest King.

At 3:45 on December 5 in Columbus, Ohio, Federal District Judge George Smith called a recess in the trial unfolding in his courtroom. He asked the lawyers for the government to come to his chambers.

The trial was the country’s most prominent antitrust prosecution in more than a decade. The General Electric Company had been indicted, accused of fixing prices in the industrial diamond market. GE was fighting the charges, and just days before, the prosecution had rested its case.

Once the lawyers arrived in his chambers, Judge Smith gave them shocking news. Before the case went to a jury—before GE even presented a complete defense—he was dismissing the charges. Judge Smith found that, based on the government’s evidence, no reasonable person could conclude that the company had committed a crime. GE had won, in the most embarrassing way possible for the government.

News of the government’s crushing defeat crackled through the nation’s courtrooms and law firms. Everywhere, the questions began to be asked: How could the Antitrust Division have fumbled so badly at the prosecutorial equivalent of the Super Bowl? Was this a group that choked when the stakes were high?

Those questions resounded in Springfield. For weeks, tensions had been building between the U.S. Attorney’s office and the Antitrust Division. Often, the agents received complaints from one set of lawyers that they didn’t know information the others had been told. The styles were starting to conflict—the antitrust lawyers were used to moving slowly, while the U.S. Attorney’s office was more familiar with fast-moving, politically charged cases. But in this situation, neither side was completely in control.

In the weeks that followed the GE decision, articles critical of the Antitrust Division appeared in a variety of publications. The most damning, published in
American Lawyer
magazine, was faxed to the FBI’s Springfield office. Agents and supervisors read the article with a growing sense of anxiety. Devastating phrases jumped out:

The Justice Department antitrust division has had a reputation in recent years for not taking cases to trial—and when they do take them to trial, losing them. . . .