ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, December 4, 1996 TAG: 9612040050
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-6 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: CHICAGO
SOURCE: Associated Press
The government's informant and chief accuser against Archer Daniels Midland Co. was indicted Tuesday along with the son of the company's chairman and two others. They were charged with conspiring to fix prices for a feed additive.
Mark Whitacre, who secretly recorded conversations between ADM officials and other industry executives for the government, said he would no longer cooperate with prosecutors and plans to plead innocent to the charges.
Whitacre's tapes are credited in part with leading to ADM's October guilty plea for its role in two international conspiracies to fix prices and divide up markets for lysine and citric acid.
The Decatur, Ill.-based company, which bills itself as the ``supermarket to the world,'' paid $100million, the largest criminal antitrust fine in history.
A federal grand jury on Tuesday indicted Whitacre; a Japanese businessman; and two former top ADM executives, including Michael Andreas, who was once considered next in line to run the giant company once his politically well-connected father, Dwayne Andreas, retires.
The indictment charged the men conspired to fix worldwide prices for the animal-feed additive lysine.
But in a surprising twist to a case that has had many turns, Whitacre said he believes he is being penalized by the authorities he had helped since 1992.
``When all the evidence comes out in this case, the only ones with questions to answer will be the FBI and Justice Department themselves,'' Whitacre said. ``Therefore, I have decided not to participate in the cover-up any longer.''
As recently as October, Whitacre had said he was continuing to cooperate with the Justice Department and planned to plead guilty to price fixing and other crimes. Whitacre's turnaround pleased lawyers for his co-defendants, who said it could help their case.
``Whitacre has obviously gone bad for the government, and this extraordinary action suggests a case in disarray,'' Reid Weingarten, a lawyer for former ADM executive Terrance Wilson, said in a statement.
Gary Spratling, the Justice Department's deputy assistant attorney general for criminal antitrust enforcement, declined comment on Whitacre's statements or how his desertion affects the government's case.
Whitacre, who now heads a Chapel Hill, N.C., biotechnology firm, had been president of ADM's BioProducts Division. He made hundreds of covert audio and video tapes of ADM meetings for prosecutors during his years as an undercover informant.
ADM fired Whitacre in 1995 and sued him this year, accusing him of embezzling company funds. Whitacre insists the money was part of an under-the-table bonus scheme approved by top ADM managers.
Whitacre declined to comment further Tuesday on the reasons for his falling out with prosecutors and referred questions to his new attorney, Richard Kurth of Danville, Ill. Kurth did not return a message left at his office.
Michael Andreas is on leave as executive vice president. Wilson retired in October after ADM's guilty plea from his post as group vice president and president of ADM's Corn Processing Division.
Also indicted was Kazutoshi Yamada, managing director of Ajinomoto Co., which pleaded guilty last month in the lysine case.
Cheil Jedang Ltd. of Seoul agreed to plead guilty Tuesday and pay the $1.25million fine for its part in the lysine conspiracy. A federal court must approve that plea agreement.
Lysine, a $600million a year industry, is used by farmers for livestock growth. Citric acid is added to food and detergents. Corn syrup is a sweetener.
The grand jury said the defendants conspired with four companies that previously pleaded guilty - ADM, Ajinomoto Co., Kyowa Hakko Kogyo Co. and Sewon America Inc. - and other unnamed corporations and executives. The scheme was intended to reduce competition in the lysine market here and abroad by fixing prices and allocating sales volumes from mid-1992 through mid-1995.
The indictment said the conspirators met and agreed to raise prices for lysine, decided how much each company would sell, traded price quotations and price announcements, and monitored compliance with their agreements.
LENGTH: Medium: 84 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP FILE/1996. Former Archer Daniels Midland executiveby CNBMark Whitacre, shown in his office in Bannockburn, Ill., in October,
says he will no longer cooperate with prosecutors. color. 2.
(headshot) M. Andreas.