ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, March 18, 1996 TAG: 9603180087
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: The New York Times
The Justice Department, which began investigating the tobacco industry three years ago, has in recent months expanded the criminal and civil inquiries, making them the Clinton administration's most aggressive prosecutorial effort against the makers of a single consumer product, government and private lawyers following the issue say.
At the leading edge of the Justice Department's actions, which could threaten tobacco executives with jail terms, are separate grand jury inquiries by federal prosecutors in New York City, Brooklyn, N.Y., the District of Columbia, Alexandria, Va., and New Orleans, where the first indictments against tobacco company employees are expected soon.
The inquiries are looking into allegations of fraud and perjury by tobacco executives. Prosecutors are examining whether tobacco executives illegally conspired to obstruct a congressional investigation into how much they knew about nicotine and its risks and whether they deceived their shareholders about how much the companies knew about the hazards of smoking, lawyers following the inquiries said.
Other grand juries are investigating whether industry-financed research groups have fraudulently operated as public relations shields for the industry.
The Justice Department's investigations have been under way for months or, in some cases, since 1993. Although department officials said privately in 1994 and early 1995 that indictments were unlikely, expectations are rising. The tobacco companies' aura of invincibility in court has been weakened by industry whistle-blowers, disclosures of internal company documents and a recent crack in the industry's once-solid wall of resistance to any efforts by plaintiffs to hold companies financially responsible for the consequences of smoking.
Rep. Martin Meehan, D-Mass., who was among the first lawmakers to urge Attorney General Janet Reno in 1994 to begin a Justice Department inquiry into whether the tobacco industry had illegally withheld its knowledge of the dangers of tobacco, said that he was astonished by the changes at the agency.
``It wasn't always such a hot issue over there at Justice,'' Meehan said. ``They were doubting Thomases at first. But a lot has changed since then. There has been a major commitment of resources and time and effort.''
So far, four of the Justice Department's six litigating divisions have taken up tobacco-related issues, including the criminal, civil, antitrust, and energy and natural resources divisions. In addition, the Justice Department's chief legal adviser's office, the Office of Legal Counsel, is examining First Amendment issues related to tobacco advertising.
Justice Department officials are careful to insist that its prosecutors are following the facts and the law, and they avoid any comment that would suggest a politically motivated campaign to turn tobacco into an outlaw industry. Nevertheless, the renewed effort by the department coincided with the administration's broad new assault on tobacco in the summer of 1995. That is when President Clinton started a campaign to discourage smoking by teen-agers and embraced a Food and Drug Administration proposal to regulate tobacco as an addictive drug.
The Justice Department criminal investigations have gathered force and direction in the shadow of high-profile civil actions, especially lawsuits filed by five states seeking to recover health care costs related to smoking and a giant class-action suit brought by about 60 law firms on behalf of all American smokers who said they are addicted.
In a stunning break with the industry's unbending tradition of fierce legal warfare against all adversaries, the Liggett Group, part of Brooke Group and the smallest of the country's five major tobacco companies, agreed last week to settle the class-action lawsuit and the claims brought by the states.
For years, anti-tobacco activists have doubted the industry's claims that its research had not shown that nicotine was addictive or that cigarettes cause disease. But documents and whistle-blowers are undermining many of those claims, and in the wake of the landmark settlements by the Liggett Group, as well as the FDA proposal, the tobacco industry appears under siege.
Tobacco representatives have responded by reiterating that they have engaged in no wrongdoing and have never misrepresented the information they have on the addictiveness or health hazards of tobacco.
The civil settlements do not affect the criminal inquiries by federal prosecutors, who are interviewing witnesses, compiling huge company dossiers and issuing subpoenas, all with a green light from top Justice officials.
LENGTH: Medium: 83 linesby CNB