The Informant

by Kurt Eichenwald

  Walking out the door, Beattie glanced at Koob.

  “There is no way things like that stay hidden,’’ he said. “Those are going to be used in every law-school antitrust class for years.’’

  The following day, November 1, a conference was held at FBI headquarters in Washington to decide what to do about the Chinese wall. For months, Shepard and Herndon had worked under a cloud, at times tripping over the feet of D’Angelo and Bassett as they attempted to do their jobs. The situation had become untenable.

  Most every prosecutor and supervisor from the two cases presented their views. As the reality of the Chinese wall was laid out, it became obvious that the rules needed revision. By the end of the meeting, Jack Keeney, Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division, announced that the wall was coming down. Beginning that day, Shepard and Herndon could meet with Whitacre, if a prosecutor was present. Even better, Chicago and Springfield agents could share information. Hopefully, that would bring the two cases to a rapid close.

  The new spirit of cooperation took hold in less than a week. Reinhart Richter had let it be known that he was willing to provide evidence in both the fraud and antitrust cases, so the two sides decided to coordinate their interview with him in Mexico City. On November 7, Herndon, Mutchnik, Bassett, and D’Angelo all flew down to Mexico. That night, the four gathered at a restaurant. They compared notes about planned interviews and found that many involved the same people. The Chicago agents griped about their relationship with the Washington prosecutors; Jim Nixon, who had arrived on a different flight that same day, didn’t even join the group for dinner. Herndon and Mutchnik razzed the two agents a little. The Harvest King team was not only working well together, they had become good friends. Bassett leaned in to Herndon.

  “You know, I never agreed with these walls,’’ he said. “That was Justice.’’

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  Herndon nodded. “I know.’’

  Before the night was over, the agents had put the problems of the past behind them. Now, they were just law enforcement again, all on the same team.

  The next morning, after being cleared for entry, Richter walked past a Marine Corps guard into the American Embassy in Mexico City. He had just driven almost fifty miles, from his home in Cuernavaca, and was ready to talk. He was escorted to the office of the legal attaché, where the agents and prosecutors were waiting.

  Richter shook everyone’s hands. With his goatee and casual appearance, he looked more like an artist than a corporate executive. The group told Richter that the fraud investigators would conduct the first interview, followed by Herndon and Mutchnik. Richter agreed and sat at a table. Bassett, D’Angelo, and Nixon took their seats while Herndon and Mutchnik left the room. Richter spoke in heavily accented English, the result of being a German national who spent most of his days in Latin America. He described meeting Whitacre when they both worked in Germany for Degussa. But soon Whitacre left to take his big position at ADM.

  “While I was still at Degussa, I spoke with Mark by phone,’’

  Richter said, sitting stiff and straight. “He told me that he had received an up-front bonus to work at ADM.’’

  The statement came out of nowhere; Whitacre had never mentioned an up-front bonus before. It sounded rehearsed. Richter said that he had stayed in contact with Whitacre, and in January 1991, was hired by his friend as an ADM consultant. Once the plant was operating, he was to become ADM’s lysine distributor in Mexico. For that, he was to receive $200,000 a year plus a start-up bonus of $50,000.

  “I went to a meeting with Mark and Jim Randall,’’ Richter continued. “They agreed to pay me an additional start-up bonus other than the fifty thousand dollars. Randall said the bonus would be paid in a special way so other ADM employees would not be aware of it. Randall told Mark to handle the bonus so it would not appear on the company books.’’

  The statement directly contradicted Richter’s taped phone message to Sid Hulse, which the agents had with them in a briefcase on the floor. If Richter kept going with this story, they were going to have to play it for him.

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  “Randall joked that I was to receive so much money I probably would want to buy a Ferrari,’’ Richter said.

  Richter described in some detail the negotiations that led to the amount of the bonus—with $190,000 paid off the books and $50,000 on the books.

  “Mark told me to send an invoice to ADM from Aminac, which is a business I own,’’ Richter said.

  “How did you send those invoices?’’ D’Angelo asked.

  “Either by fax or directly to Mark.’’

  The Aminac invoice amount—$93,500—was wired to his account in Houston at the Post Oak Bank, Richter said. For the second wire transfer, Richter used the company of a friend named Adolpho Acebras. That company, Komven, sent the second invoice, for

  $87,466, and again the money was wired to Post Oak. A portion of that money, Richter said, may have gone to Acebras.

  “What did you tell Mark about Acebras?’’

  “Nothing. He knew none of the particulars.’’

  Richter never thought much about those 1991 payments until a few months before, when ADM went public with its allegations against Whitacre. Richter related how Williams & Connolly had contacted him and how he had flown to Washington to meet with the lawyers.

  “They told me the payments related to these invoices were not authorized,’’ Richter said. “I told them that Randall and Mark knew all about them.’’

  The agents nodded, letting Richter speak without challenging him. They wanted him locked into his story before pointing out the problems.

  “Later, I phoned Howard Buffett, another friend of mine from ADM,’’ Richter said. “I told him that ADM could only have found those invoices so quickly because Randall and others knew about them. He told me to speak with Marty Allison and Sid Hulse, because they were in the same position I was. He also told me about other ADM executives he knew who may have received suspicious payments.’’

  Bassett nodded, then calmly removed a spreadsheet from his briefcase. It showed money transfers at the Post Oak Bank account, where the invoiced payments had been wired.

  “Now, from what we see here,’’ Bassett said, laying out the records,

  “there is a good deal of money going from this account to Mark Whitacre.’’

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  Richter blinked. “Those are loans,’’ he said stiffly.

  “Loans?’’

  “Yes.’’

  Bassett flipped through the records. “This is a loan?’’ he said, pointing to one transfer from the account to Whitacre. “And this, too?’’

  “Yes. Mark was going to repay me in 1996 or 1997. We wrote loan agreements for this. I still have them, if you want to see.’’

  “Let’s just keep looking at these,’’ Bassett said. The records showed hundreds of thousands of dollars going to Whitacre, Ginger, even Whitacre’s parents.

  “These are all loans?’’

  “Yes,’’ Richter said, his confidence wavering.

  D’Angelo shook his head.

  “Nobody’s going to believe this,’’ he said. “Other people have told us it isn’t true. Hulse is telling us other things about this.’’

  Not completely true, but it caught Richter’s attention.

  “Look, we know you’re sticking up for Mark,’’ D’Angelo said. “But Mark may ultimately cooperate. He’s told us different things about these payments already.’’

  Another bluff.

  “To be blunt,’’ Bassett joined in, “your story doesn’t sound true.’’

  The agents kept up the pressure. Finally, Richter slumped in his chair.
/>   “You’re right,’’ he muttered. “It isn’t true.’’

  The agents paused. “What isn’t true?’’ Bassett asked.

  “All the loan documents, everything about these being loans. That is not true.’’

  The agents stopped. Richter had just flipped.

  “I feel terrible doing this to Mark,’’ he said. “But he told me to say these things.”

  “All right,’’ Bassett said. “So what really happened?’’

  Richter stared at the table, gently shaking his head.

  “Mark never intended to pay these loans back,’’ he finally said. “We just put the paperwork together in case anybody ever came back, asking questions.’’

  “So what was this money that went to Mark from the account?’’

  Richter rubbed his temple, then looked at the agents. “This was the whole idea.”

  The agents were confused. What did he mean?

  “From the beginning,’’ Richter said. “All this money we said was a start-up bonus for me. It was for Mark.’’

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  Richter swallowed and looked at the agents.

  “Everything went to Mark.’’

  The dam had burst. For the rest of the interview, Richter poured out a new story.

  Again, it involved Nigeria. Richter said that Whitacre had lost large sums of money there and thought of the bonus scheme as a way to recoup his investment. Whitacre believed that since Richter was a nonresident alien, his Houston account was the perfect place to hide the money, tax-free. Richter said he agreed to let Whitacre use it.

  “Mark called me immediately before any funds were going to be wired to the account,’’ Richter said. “He also told me what to do with the money once it arrived.’’

  “How did you disburse the money?’’ Bassett asked.

  “By wire, by check. Sometimes in cash.’’

  “How much cash?’’

  Richter thought for a moment. “I remember one time coming to the United States, and I paid Mark twenty-five thousand or thirty thousand dollars in cash. Something like that.’’

  “Anything else?’’

  “Yes, well, I sometimes gave Mark blank checks from the account, checks that I signed.’’

  “Would you be able to identify cashed checks that weren’t filled out by you?’’

  “Yes, I could do that.’’

  Bassett showed Richter the spreadsheet of transactions in the Post Oak account. Using a blue pen, Richter marked each one that involved Whitacre. He also noted the purported bonus—totaling almost

  $226,000.

  In time, most every disbursement was marked with a blue dot, although some of the money he identified as his own—almost all of it coming from the sale of his home in Germany. He had eventually deposited that $250,000 in Whitacre’s Swiss bank account, Richter said, so that he could obtain a higher return on a managed account.

  “I didn’t have the five-hundred-thousand-dollar minimum for such an account,’’ Richter said.

  Weeks before, he had received a check for $425,000 from Whitacre, written on a Swiss bank account. Richter didn’t know it, but this was one of three checks sent by the Swiss Bank Corporation to Mike Gilbert, Whitacre’s brother-in-law in Ohio.

  “Why did you receive that money?’’ Bassett asked.

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  “Some of it was money from my house that I had given to Mark. Probably fifty thousand to seventy thousand dollars was for the repayment of real loans I gave him. And the rest was compensation for services I provided through the Post Oak Bank account.’’

  Richter sighed. He seemed weary.

  “I must stop,’’ he said. “I have a scheduled meeting I must attend.’’

  The agents looked at him. Would he be willing to meet again? Bassett asked.

  “Of course,’’ Richter answered. “But now, I must go.’’

  The agents and Nixon set down their pens. The interview was over.

  Outside in a hallway, Herndon and Mutchnik looked up when Richter stepped out of the room. The two men stood, ready to begin. Richter shook his head.

  “I’m tired,’’ Richter said. “I have another meeting, and I need to get home.’’

  The two suggested meeting in the morning.

  “No,’’ Richter said. “I can legally drive only on even days in Mexico City.’’

  “What?’’ Herndon said, surprised. “Well, why don’t you stay the night, then?’’

  “No,’’ Richter said. “I need to get back.’’

  This was getting tough. Herndon and Mutchnik knew that if they pushed Richter too hard, they might lose any chance for an interview. So they casually agreed to meet at the embassy in two days. Richter said good-bye and left.

  That evening, Richter was at his home in Cuernavaca, when the telephone rang. His wife answered, and called to her husband. Richter quietly picked up the extension.

  “Hey, how you doin’?’’ a voice said. “It’s Mark.’’

  The day of unexpected vacation was wonderful for Herndon and Mutchnik, offering a chance to visit Mexico’s pyramids and other tourist spots. But by Friday, they were ready to meet with Richter. Around eight-thirty that morning, Herndon was in his hotel room, preparing to walk to the embassy. The phone rang.

  “This is Reinhart Richter. I have just learned that the embassy is closed today due to a federal holiday.’’

  Herndon grabbed a pen. He needed to keep notes.

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  “Well, yes,’’ he said, sitting down on the bed. “The embassy is closed, but I’ve made arrangements for our interview. They’re going to let us in. We have a room.’’

  “Oh,’’ Richter said, pausing. “Well, um, I have a very important business meeting, very important for my future. I have made some phone calls trying to cancel, but I can’t. I cannot reach anybody. I just can’t meet you today.’’

  What’s going on here? Herndon thought. Richter had given them the runaround for days, and now he’s coming up with excuse after excuse. A horrible thought popped into Herndon’s mind.

  “Did Mark Whitacre tell you not to talk to me?’’

  Richter paused. “I spoke to Mark since I saw you. But that was to talk about my meeting with the other agents.’’

  “And did he tell you not to talk to me?’’

  “No, Mark told me that he knew you, and he agreed I should speak with you.’’

  Richter said he might be willing to talk over the telephone in coming days, and the call came to an end. Herndon hung up and finished jotting down his notes.

  Herndon felt certain that Richter was lying. Although he couldn’t understand why Whitacre would do it, the agent was convinced that his old cooperating witness had persuaded Reinhart Richter to ditch the interview.

  Glancing at his watch, Herndon realized Mutchnik was probably waiting in the lobby. He headed to the door, eager to find the prosecutor. He wanted to let him know that Whitacre may have just tampered with a witness.

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  CHAPTER 17

  That same morning, Tony D’Angelo was at his desk in shirtsleeves, his suit jacket hung on a nearby coat rack. The Chicago Field Office was relatively quiet, with most agents using the early hours to pore over newspapers or review case files. D’Angelo, on his first day back from Mexico, had barely settled in when the phone rang. It was Herndon, calling from the embassy.

  “Tony,’’ Herndon said, “we’ve had a problem.’’

  D’Angelo took notes as Herndon described the Richter call. Everything indicated that Whitacre had told Richter to stop talking.

  “Could you call Whitacre and find out if he told Richter to cancel?’’ Herndon a
sked. “Urge him to call Richter back; tell him to reconsider.’’

  D’Angelo put down his pen. “Okay, let me get on it right away.’’

  He clicked off the line and telephoned Bassett.

  “Mike, it’s me,’’ D’Angelo said. “Come on over. We need to talk to Jim Epstein.’’

  Epstein returned the message from the agents at around nine-twenty that morning.

  “Jim, hold on, okay?’’ D’Angelo said.

  D’Angelo transferred the call to the speakerphone in his squad leader’s office. He and Bassett headed to the office and punched a button on the console.

  “Okay, Jim, we’ve got problems,’’ D’Angelo began. “One, your client is lying to us.’’

  “Whoa,’’ Epstein said. “What do you mean?’’

  The two agents described how Richter had lied and then changed his story. Now, he was contradicting Whitacre.

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  “He told us the first version was something Whitacre cooked up,’’

  D’Angelo said. “So again, problem one, Whitacre is lying to us. And problem two, he’s obstructing justice because he’s telling witnesses to lie to us.’’

  Epstein sighed. “Ah, damn it.’’

  But there was more, D’Angelo continued. They had just heard from Herndon in Mexico, and now it seemed that Whitacre had persuaded Richter to stop talking.

  “Basically, Whitacre’s becoming more and more worthless every day in the antitrust case,’’ D’Angelo said. “You know this is all discoverable. He’s supposed to be telling the truth, Jim, and he’s lying.’’

  “Guys, I don’t know what to say,’’ Epstein replied. “I’ve been telling him to tell the truth.’’

  “And you’ve got to tell him to stop talking to witnesses, too,’’

  D’Angelo said.

  “I’m trying! I’ve told him not to call these people, but I can’t babysit the man twenty-four hours a day.’’

  “Talk to him again,’’ D’Angelo urged. “If he’s directing Richter not to talk, have him change his tune.’’