The Informant

by Kurt Eichenwald

  “Yeah, okay. Are you going to be there for a while?’’

  Both agents said they would.

  “All right, I’ll call him. Let me get back to you.’’

  Minutes later, Epstein called back. “I’ve got Mark on the line,’’ he said. D’Angelo again transferred the call to his squad leader’s office and headed there with Bassett. He punched the speakerphone button.

  “Okay . . . ,’’ D’Angelo began.

  “I didn’t tell Richter not to talk!’’ Whitacre sputtered. “He called me. He called me, very upset about his interview. He said you weren’t interested in information against others at ADM. He was really upset, really upset by the interview and how he was treated.’’

  Bassett glanced at D’Angelo. This made no sense. “What did he say specifically?’’

  “He said it was all just ‘dump on Mark Whitacre.’ He told me he tried to give evidence against other ADM executives, and Jim Nixon kept saying you guys weren’t interested. You only wanted evidence against me!’’

  “Mark, that’s the furthest thing from the truth,’’ Bassett said. “We gave Richter every opportunity to tell his story. We asked lots of questions, not only about possible wrongdoing by you, but by other current or former employees of ADM. It was explored very extensively.’’

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  “Look, Mark,’’ D’Angelo said. “Herndon is down there right now, and wants to talk to Richter. Is there anything you can do to facilitate that? They want to talk about the antitrust case. We already finished the fraud interview.’’

  “I’ll see what I can do,’’ Whitacre said.

  Whitacre called back within the hour with little to report. He had reached Richter’s wife, he said. Her husband was at a dentist’s appointment and would not be back for hours. No price-fixing interview could take place that day. But again, Whitacre said, he was convinced that the real problem was Richter’s dismay about his first interview.

  “He told me that the FBI and the Justice Department are working hard to protect ADM and the Andreases and Jim Randall,’’

  Whitacre fumed. “He said talking to you was like talking to Williams & Connolly.’’

  “Did he tell you we didn’t listen to his other allegations?’’ Bassett asked.

  “He said you did a little, but without enthusiasm.’’

  “Well, what didn’t we hear about?’’

  For ten minutes, Whitacre ticked off a series of items, including allegations of a two-million-dollar bribe paid by Dwayne Andreas to a Mexican politician and a four-million-dollar under-the-table payment by Jim Randall to Dr. Chris Jones.

  D’Angelo wrote down the information, although it sounded familiar. Epstein had told them weeks before that Richter was eager to spill these stories to the FBI. But, Richter had never said a word about any of it. Either Whitacre was lying, or Richter was holding back. And both agents already suspected that they knew which of those options was most likely to be true.

  The Monadnock Building rises above West Jackson Boulevard in downtown Chicago, its sixteen stories straining thick masonry walls. Completed in 1891, the Monadnock had once been the world’s tallest building; now it was dwarfed by steel-structured giants. Standing just catty-corner from the Dirksen Federal Building, the architectural masterpiece had become a popular site for some of the city’s top defense lawyers, including Jeff Steinback, the attorney hired by Ron Ferrari. For weeks, Steinback had been trying to arrange another interview with the government in hopes of staving off a possible prosecution. Ferrari had more to say, Steinback promised. Finally, an agreement was reached to meet on December 6. Eich_0767903277_5p_02_r1.qxd 10/11/01 3:57 PM Page 464 464

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  That day, D’Angelo and Bassett walked with Jim Nixon through the Monadnock’s shoe box of a lobby, toward a polished aluminum staircase. Old-fashioned light-filament bulbs, attached to tentacles adorning the walls and ceiling, battled feebly against the ground floor’s Victorian darkness. The three men headed to an elevator that took them upstairs, where a woman met them in the waiting area of Steinback’s office.

  “Hey, Tony,’’ the woman said as the group walked in. “How are you doing?’’

  “Okay, Carol. How’ve you been?’’ D’Angelo replied. The agent had dealt with Steinback many times before.

  The group followed Carol into Steinback’s office. Shafts of sunlight filtered through the windows, illuminating walls adorned with images of professional boxing, Steinback’s passion. The lawyer was at his desk; beside him, Ferrari was in a chair, looking cowed. Steinback stood and broke into a smile.

  “Hey, come on in,’’ he said. “Take a seat.’’

  The agents and Nixon settled into chairs facing the desk. After some opening chitchat, Steinback took control.

  “Ron’s here to cooperate,’’ Steinback said. “He is ready to fully and truthfully answer your questions to the best of his ability.’’

  Steinback glanced at Ferrari. “Isn’t that right?’’

  Ferrari nodded silently.

  Steinback continued his lecture, saying Ferrari understood the ramifications of failing to tell the truth. The agents wrote it all down, impressed. Steinback was a class act; he had clearly beaten up Ferrari on the importance of honesty before they arrived. If he lied, Ferrari was going to dig himself in deeper.

  “Now,’’ Steinback said, “I’ve looked over a copy of the 302 from your first meeting with Ron, and there are a few things that need to be clarified.’’

  Clarified. In this game, the agents knew, that was a defense code for a client who wanted to change his story.

  First, Steinback said, there was the matter of when Ferrari had wired all of the $1.5 million in his Hong Kong account to Whitacre in the Caymans. It hadn’t been in sixty to ninety days, as he had maintained. In fact, money from ADM had remained in the account for at least eleven months.

  D’Angelo wrote that down. Ferrari’s story about desperately trying to move the money out of his account as soon as he heard about it had just fallen apart.

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  Another problem, Steinback said, was that Ferrari had taken longer to pay back the $25,000 loan from Whitacre than he had said in the first interview. Finally, there was the matter of the $25,000 in cash in Ferrari’s safe-deposit box—the money that Ferrari said he and his wife had worked so hard to save. Ferrari hadn’t told the whole story about that, either, Steinback said. He looked toward his client.

  Ferrari picked up the dialogue.

  “That money was from unofficial bonuses I received when I was playing football for the Forty-niners,’’ he said.

  “What do you mean?” D’Angelo asked.

  Ferrari fumbled with an answer, glancing at his lap. Steinback leaned up, a sly grin on his face, and broke in.

  “You know, sometimes things happen in football games that aren’t officially sanctioned or aren’t supposed to be officially sanctioned,’’

  Steinback explained.

  The agents listened, uncertain where this was going.

  “So, let’s say there’s an unpopular player on the other team. Sometimes, there are these little bonus payments that the coaches pay for a particularly vicious hit on one of those unpopular guys.’’

  The agents stared at Steinback, incredulous. Professional football players were being paid money under the table to hurt one another ? Steinback smiled. He clearly enjoyed this story.

  “They call it ‘head-hunting,’ ” he said. “Basically for money paid when you take somebody’s head off.’’

  Steinback coolly glanced at Ferrari, checking his condition before tossing out the next bit of damage. “Now, the rest came from money he was paid for charity events. He’d attend, and they’d slip him a few hundred dollars honorarium, all cash.’’<
br />
  The lawyer turned to Ferrari.

  “Did I describe it accurately, Ron?’’

  Ferrari nodded, saying nothing.

  The agents laughed.

  The interview shifted to the $1.5 million payment in Ferrari’s Hong Kong account. Again, Ferrari said that Whitacre had asked to use the account for a consulting commission.

  “What did you know about the amount of money coming in?’’

  Bassett asked.

  “Like I said, I didn’t know,’’ Ferrari replied. “I expected it would be in the forty-thousand-to fifty-thousand-dollar range.’’

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  “You sure you didn’t think it was more?’’

  “No, that’s what I thought at the time.’’

  Bassett pulled a file from his briefcase, removed a photocopy of a handwritten note, and handed it to Steinback.

  “I think this might help his recollection,’’ Bassett said flatly. Steinback read the document as an expression of surprise flashed across his face. Without a word, he passed it to his client. Ferrari studied it in silence. It was a moment for the agents to relish. The note was signed by Ferrari and sent to the Hong Kong bank days before the wire transfer from ADM. It informed the bankers that a large sum of money—

  precisely $1.5 million—would be deposited into Ferrari’s account in two to three days. Not only did it prove Ferrari knew the amount of money coming, but also that he had worked to be sure the bank was prepared for it. His story was destroyed.

  “That’s your handwriting?’’ Bassett asked.

  Ferrari’s eyes stayed glued to the paper. “Yes.’’

  “So, you sure you didn’t know how much was coming?’’

  Ferrari said nothing. Then he looked up at the agents.

  “Mark called beforehand,’’ he said. “He told me $1.5 million was on the way.’’

  “Why did you write the note?’’ Bassett asked.

  “I was doing Mark a favor. But I was concerned about the size of the deposit and didn’t know anything about where it came from.’’

  “If you were so upset about the amount, why accept the money? Why didn’t you tell the bank to send it back?’’

  Ferrari looked flustered. “I was just doing Mark a favor,’’ he repeated. The agents hammered on the inconsistencies in the story. Ferrari repeated that he had never received any of the money. He became defensive and dug in. D’Angelo decided to try a change-up and switched topics.

  “You ever hear anything from Whitacre about Nigeria?”

  “Yeah,’’ he said. “He told me he had previously done some Nigerian deal, sending money there.’’

  “What did he tell you about it?’’

  “It was strange. He’d send them money, and they would make up invoices or something. Mark told me that he expected them to return the initial investment plus more.’’

  “Did he tell you how he knew about these deals?’’

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  “Yeah. He said he learned about it from Mick Andreas, who had done something like this in the past.’’

  Ferrari shook his head. “I thought it sounded crazy.’’

  “When did you learn about it?’’

  “I don’t know, I guess around 1991.’’

  Ferrari seemed lost in thought for a second.

  “I’ll tell you, I really thought the whole thing was nefarious,’’ he finally said. “And I was under the impression that Mark had invested a lot of money in it.’’

  “Did you think the $1.5 million might have anything to do with the Nigerians?’’

  “I was very concerned about that,’’ he said. “You know, I kept worrying that if this money had been generated through one of those deals that I might get a visit from these Nigerians sometime.’’

  Ferrari glanced from the agents to Nixon. “That really worried me,’’

  he said.

  The interview lasted almost two more hours. The agents returned to questions about the $1.5 million wire, but Ferrari kept playing the same notes. He had received no money and didn’t know how Whitacre had obtained it.

  The agents asked Ferrari if he knew about thefts of technology by ADM. He replied that he had heard stories from Whitacre about the company trying to steal microbes by sending people into the sewers near competitors’ plants. But he cautioned that he had no personal knowledge of thefts. Everything was from Whitacre.

  The interview ended and the agents put away their documents. With Nixon, they stood and made their exit. Within minutes, the three were back on the street, quietly discussing the interview. Both agents thought Ferrari was in trouble; the note to the bank crippled his story. Nixon was not so sure.

  A week later, on December 13, Mike Bassett saw the familiar colors of a Federal Express envelope in his box. He removed it and glanced at the shipping label. It was from the Fraud Section. Bassett headed back to his desk and pulled the cardboard strip along the envelope’s top. After reading the letter, Bassett reached for the phone. He needed to talk to D’Angelo right away.

  “Tony, I just got a letter from the prosecutors,’’ Bassett said. “You’ve got to see it. Goddamn it! I’ve never seen anything like it.’’

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  Within fifteen minutes, D’Angelo was reading the same letter. It struck him as strange right off the bat; most communications from prosecutors would go through supervisors, not directly to the case agents. But as D’Angelo read, what at first seemed odd struck him as far more worrisome.

  The letter, signed by Mackay and Nixon for Mary Spearing, opened with a chatty “Dear Mike and Tony.’’ From there, it launched into an assessment of the fraud investigation. It listed the interviews conducted and the amount of money traced so far. Records of companies and accounts in five parts of the world were still being sought. The prosecutors were also still attempting to arrange interviews through Aubrey Daniel with several ADM officers, including Randall and Andreas.

  The prosecutors wrote that when the investigation began, they had hoped to finish by November. That proved impossible, but a new deadline was now being set.

  “We would like to have the investigation completed by the end of January 1996,’’ the letter read.

  That’s a little more than a month, D’Angelo thought. To accomplish that, they needed to confront Whitacre soon.

  “Some aspects of the investigation may not be fully completed until we have obtained access to individuals and records in foreign jurisdictions,’’ the letter read. “Nonetheless, we believe the domestic part of this investigation can be substantially completed by this date.’’

  The prosecutors wanted to indict before reviewing all the evidence? What was the rush? To meet the deadline, the letter stated, the agents needed to focus on a few tasks. Those included interviewing seven people, completing a net-worth analysis for Whitacre, obtaining and reviewing his tax returns, tracing the fraud proceeds, and analyzing his phone records. But the prosecutors were also clearly suspicious of the agents. At one point in the letter, they asked why they had not received 302s from conversations with defense lawyers. D’Angelo and Bassett both laughed. Agents don’t write 302s for lawyers—those are reserved for witness statements. And, while they did write memos of those contacts, such records were rarely shared with prosecutors—after all, the prosecutors were supposed to be in frequent contact with the defense lawyers, not the agents.

  Then, a sentence appeared that stopped D’Angelo cold.

  “Please note that it is not an objective of this investigation to turn Eich_0767903277_5p_02_r1.qxd 10/11/01 3:57 PM Page 469

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  Whitacre into an informant for the investigation of others who are involved in the im
proper activities of Whitacre.’’

  He read the sentence again.

  It is not an objective of this investigation to turn Whitacre into an in- formant for the investigation of others. . . . D’Angelo felt a chill. Was the FBI being ordered to ignore Whitacre’s leads, to ensure a quick indictment?

  He set the letter down and looked at Bassett.

  “What the hell is this?’’ he said.

  Bassett folded his arms across his chest. “I was wondering how long it would take you to see that.’’

  Neither agent knew what to do. Their job was to pursue every lead to the end of the earth; now, it seemed, they were being told to limit their investigation to ensure the indictment of only one particular person. They couldn’t shake the feeling that they were witnessing a potential obstruction of justice—only this time, by the Department of Justice itself.

  Later that day, Bassett and D’Angelo were eating lunch in the rear of a Chicago deli, stewing about their options. Bassett swallowed a bite of his turkey sandwich.

  “Goddamn it, this is bullshit!’’ he fumed.

  “I’ve never seen anything like this,’’ D’Angelo said. “We’re not putting up with this; we’re going on record.’’

  The Justice Department had to be bowing to the demands of Williams & Connolly, the agents said. First, there was the false announcement that ADM was not a target; now it seemed that they were being told to take out the chief witness against the company as fast as possible. This was becoming some Washington influence game, they railed.

  “The fix is in, man,’’ D’Angelo said. “Williams & Connolly is running this investigation.’’

  The conversation shifted to hypotheticals. What if they did it? What if they ignored Whitacre’s leads?

  “That one’s not hard to figure out,’’ Bassett said. “We could be prosecuted for obstruction.’’

  D’Angelo nodded and took a bite of his club sandwich.

  “You know one thing is true,’’ he said. “Once Whitacre’s indicted, they’re not going to do anything against these other people.’’

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  “We’ve got to finish everything at the same time,’’ Bassett said.