“Mr. Daniel isn’t here right now,’’ Schmidtlein said.
“Well,’’ Herbst replied, “is there anyone here who can accept these on behalf of the firm?’’
Schmidtlein seemed uncertain. “Well, we’re trying to get Mr. Daniel on the phone, but he’s not here.’’
Herbst again pushed for anyone else who could accept the subpoenas. Finally, William McDaniels, another lawyer at the firm, showed up at the reception area. After reviewing the subpoenas, he accepted them without comment.
Their job done, the two agents left the office.
The crowds at the Illinois State Fair surged forward, with many extending hands toward Bob Dole, the Senate majority leader. Dole had arrived at the fair in Springfield, ostensibly to give a speech promoting the use of ethanol, the government-subsidized fuel additive that had brought ADM so many millions of dollars. But everyone knew that the senator was also there to advance his candidacy for the 1996 Republican presidential nomination.
During the day, a crowd of reporters approached Dole with questions. One asked if Dole believed the price-fixing case against ADM would hurt his old friend Dwayne Andreas.
“It’s only an investigation,’’ Dole said. “We have to wait and see what happens.’’
Paul Myer’s complaints about his unsold Tennessee home were heard by official Washington within days.
A call placed to the staff of Tennessee congressman Bob Clement resulted in inquiries from Capitol Hill to the Justice Department, eventually reaching the office of Gary Spratling, a deputy chief of the Antitrust Division. Brenda Carlton, the division’s congressional liaison, followed up with a phone call to Myer.
With little questioning, Myer detailed his dealings with Whitacre. He mentioned the claim from Joseph Caiazzo that Whitacre was in witness protection.
“The next day, that same lawyer called to say Whitacre was not competent to enter into a contract,’’ Myer said. “I hired a lawyer, and he called Caiazzo. But all Caiazzo would say was that he no longer represented Whitacre.’’
There was no financial reason that prevented them from proceeding, Myer said. The Whitacres had obtained a mortgage. He had seen papers proving it.
“What was the name of the lender?’’ Carlton asked.
“I don’t know,’’ Myer said. “But we were satisfied the papers were valid.’’
After the call, Carlton typed her notes for Spratling, who in turn forwarded the information to the fraud prosecutors. Probably, he figured, the FBI would want to know about a Whitacre transaction of almost $1 million.
Since his suicide attempt, Whitacre seemed to have all but disappeared—at least, as far as the government was concerned. The fraud prosecutors were beginning to worry that things were becoming too quiet; Whitacre, they feared, might be planning to flee. Bassett and D’Angelo were instructed to contact Whitacre’s lawyers for an update.
The agents placed a conference call on August 17. Epstein was out of town, so his partner Bob Zaideman took the call. He had few answers. On Dr. Miller’s recommendation, the lawyers had not spoken much with Whitacre. Still, Zaideman assured the agents that Whitacre was not a flight risk. Just in case, he said, the lawyers had already taken Whitacre’s passport from him.
The next day, Bassett telephoned Dr. Miller for an update. While Miller described nothing about Whitacre’s condition or his treatment, by that point the doctor had placed him on lithium, a medication to treat manic depression. He explained to Bassett that Whitacre had been released from the hospital earlier that day and was no longer considered a risk to himself.
“Do you think he is any sort of a flight risk?”
“I am virtually certain that he’s not,’’ Miller replied. “He’s not going anywhere.’’
“We still need to conduct further interviews,’’ Bassett said. “Is he up to that?’’
“Not yet,’’ Miller replied. “It’s too early.’’
Miller cleared his throat. “At this point, I believe any contact by the government could have a negative impact on Mr. Whitacre’s health.’’
In Steffisburg, Beat Schweizer walked to the table where his wife and children were eating breakfast and kissed them good-bye. Rushing to make a seven o’clock doctor’s appointment, the money manager walked out the front door and headed down the steps to his garage.
Partway down, Schweizer stopped. Two men in suits were waiting at the bottom of the steps. They approached him.
“Excuse me, who are you, please?’’ one of the men asked in German.
“Beat Schweizer. Who are you?’’
The men brought out badges. They were police detectives, a special team that had driven the two hours from Zurich that morning. They had come to take Schweizer to Zurich for an interview with prosecutors. He knew that he would probably not be jailed, just released after the interview. But Schweizer was frightened nonetheless.
The detectives escorted Schweizer back to his home office. He stood by in shock as they collected his files and floppy disks and then downloaded data from his personal computer. Once they’d seized the evidence, they brought the material and Schweizer out to their car. They placed him in the backseat and drove away.
Two hours later, an anxious Schweizer was escorted to the prosecutor’s office. People were everywhere; a group of men in suits sat at a long table. Schweizer was shown a seat. A man who had been working behind a desk stood and approached him.
“Herr Schweizer,’’ the man said in German, “my name is Fridolin Triet. I am with the Special Crimes Unit.’’
Triet stepped closer.
“I want to ask you about Mark Whitacre.’’
For Shepard and Herndon, most days presented another reason to be miserable. Stories of Whitacre’s lies were washing in so fast that it was hard to take them seriously anymore. The Washington Post had revealed the fictitious adoption, and now the agents were hearing rumors that Whitacre had told some story about being in witness protection just to get out of a house closing.
And it seemed that as Whitacre sank, so did the case. Nobody in Washington mentioned the tapes anymore, or seemed to recognize the potential of Harvest King. As far as the agents were concerned, splitting off citric and high-fructose corn syrup was the ultimate indignity. No one had consulted them before making such a huge strategic decision. Springfield was becoming a third-class citizen.
Herndon decided to put his anger into words. He banged out a teletype, criticizing many of the decisions that had been made at the Department of Justice.
“It appears,’’ Herndon wrote, “that the actions of DOJ are unduly influenced by the headlines of the day and/or the statements of defense counsel.’’
To the casual reader, the words might have seemed restrained. But by the standard of the gray, bureaucratic language of Bureau communications, Herndon’s statements bordered on a jeremiad.
In most cases, such strong words would be reworked—or even spiked—by supervisors. But everyone in Springfield agreed with Herndon. On Monday, August 21, the teletype was sent to headquarters almost unchanged.
That same morning, Mike Bassett picked up a copy of the Wall Street Journal from a table at his squad’s office. On page two, the headline on an article stopped him cold.
ADM ASSERTS EX-OFFICIAL DIVERTED OVER $9 MILLION.
Bassett read the article quickly. There weren’t a lot of details, although it said that the $9 million had been sent to a Swiss bank account in the name of ABP Trading. Among the more telling parts of the article was a quote from Jim Epstein, given when he was called for comment.
“I’m not going to have anything to say for a long time.’’
To Bassett, the statement strongly suggested that Epstein had been just as surprised by the news as the FBI was.
D’Angelo was in a hotel room on Route 7 in Leesburg, Virginia. It was his first day of an “in-service,’’ the term for an FBI training session used to teach agents new skills—in this case, for a possible future assignment teaching in Eas
tern Europe. As D’Angelo prepared to leave, the telephone rang. It was his new partner.
“You won’t believe this,’’ Bassett said. “It just came out in the Journal. ADM says Whitacre stole nine million dollars.’’
D’Angelo shook his head. “Holy . . . ,’’ he started. “Unbelievable.”
“No kidding.’’
“This case is getting stranger and stranger. This is just really, really weird.’’
The agents griped for a minute. Williams & Connolly hadn’t let them know anything about this money. In some ways, they feared the firm might be sending a warning by taking the information to the press first.
“We’re being set up,’’ Bassett said. “If they’re going public with nine million dollars, they probably know a lot more.’’
“Probably.’’
“Yeah,’’ Bassett sighed. “They’re going to hold back just to make us look bad.’’
That same day, Ed Herbst left the Hoover Building, headed to Twelfth Street for another visit to Williams & Connolly. The first response to the subpoena served days before was ready to be picked up.
He walked into the reception area and identified himself. A small sealed envelope—addressed to Mary Spearing—was waiting. Herbst took it to his office and unsealed it. He needed to record the arrival of each item.
There was a cover letter to Spearing from Aubrey Daniel. One copy of the anonymous note from Tennessee that had been mailed to Dwayne Andreas, alleging wrongdoing by the agents. One copy of the same note to Randall. A copy of each envelope used to send the anonymous notes.
That was it.
On a day that ADM was boasting to the world about finding $9 million in Whitacre thefts, the only records its lawyers were willing to show the government were a couple of anonymous notes that proved nothing.
On the morning of Friday, August 25, Tony D’Angelo pulled up at the curb in front of a house in Reston, Virginia. From his rental car, he double-checked the address. No question; this was the Virginia home of Paul Myer, the man who had sold his house to Whitacre.
D’Angelo walked up the path to the house. It was a nice neighborhood, but this was no million-dollar residence. Obviously, the Tennessee house had been Myer’s big home. He reached the front door and rang the bell.
A man answered, dressed in khakis and a white shirt. He glared at D’Angelo.
“Mr. Myer?’’ D’Angelo said. “I’m Special Agent Tony D’Angelo. We spoke earlier.’’
Myer hesitated, seeming to size up D’Angelo.
“Is Whitacre in witness protection?’’ he growled. “That’s what he told me.’’
From that moment, every look, every sound communicated Myer’s anger—at Whitacre, at the government, at D’Angelo, for that matter. He bitterly said Washington was responsible for his problems in selling his house. Somebody, he said, was going to compensate him.
“Wait, let’s take this back a step,’’ D’Angelo said. “I came here to get all the facts.’’
“Listen, I know how Washington works,’’ Myer said. “I’ve worked at the White House. I know how the FBI works, and if I have to go public to embarrass you, then I will.’’
D’Angelo held up a hand. “That’s fine,’’ he said. “I’m not here to dissuade you, I’m here to get the facts and get your story to my superiors who have decision-making authority. But we still don’t know what happened yet.’’
“Is Whitacre in witness protection?’’ Myer repeated.
“I really can’t talk to you about the case,’’ D’Angelo responded. “But you know, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the things Mr. Whitacre told you weren’t true.’’
Myer nodded. He understood what D’Angelo was saying. He showed the agent to the kitchen and served coffee. Then, as they sat at the table, Myer told of his experiences with Whitacre. The mysterious mortgage lender, the expectation of financial help from the government, the story about witness protection. D’Angelo took it all down.
Near the end of the interview, Myer spoke again of his anger, repeating that someone needed to compensate him.
“And if I don’t get satisfaction,’’ he said, “I’m taking my case to the media.’’
One at a time, the lawyers for the potential defendants in the Harvest King case had been visiting the prosecutors at the Antitrust Division.
The tactics of each were markedly different. John Bray, the cerebral and aggressive Washington lawyer hired for Mick Andreas, had already demanded a target letter for his client and the right to interview Whitacre. Reid Weingarten, representing Terry Wilson, seemed to be making noises about possibly cooperating—but, of course, only after being allowed to review the tapes.
In late August, lawyers from the firm of Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton, which represented Ajinomoto, came to visit the prosecutors. Hoping to persuade the defense team to cut a deal, the government lawyers allowed them to view some videotapes.
But even afterward, the defense lawyers played hard to get. Ajinomoto was unwilling to consider guilty pleas for individual executives—even Mimoto was off the table.
Besides, they cautioned, the prosecutors shouldn’t push too hard. After all, there were those allegations about wrongdoing by the FBI agents who ran Harvest King.
The two ADM corporate lawyers stared down at the secretary. They wanted answers.
The secretary, Liz Taylor, glanced anxiously at her hands. The situation at ADM had grown uncomfortable for her ever since the company learned that her former boss, Mark Whitacre, had worked with the FBI. Some executives treated her with suspicion, perhaps for good reason. While Taylor said nothing, she had known about Whitacre’s role in the case for about two years. He had told her how, once the investigation went public, he was going to clean up ADM. But now he was gone, and she was left behind, an unfortunate stand-in for the object of the company’s paranoia.
Until today, no one had questioned Taylor. She had watched in silence as two in-house company lawyers, Scott Roberts and David Smith, had searched Whitacre’s office, digging through drawers and cabinets in search of—what?
But apparently, they had found something. Whitacre had maintained an off-site voice-mail account through a private vendor. The lawyers figured out that Taylor probably knew the access code. Now, they wanted it.
“Liz,’’ Roberts said, “you’re an employee of ADM. You have to answer our questions. We need to know that code.’’
Taylor shook her head. “I’m uncomfortable telling you. It has nothing to do with ADM. It’s private.’’
“Liz, you don’t have a choice. You have to tell us.’’
The conversation went in circles. Taylor didn’t know what she was supposed to do, so she stuck with what she thought was right and refused. Frustrated, the lawyers asked her to think through her decision during lunch. She left the building, agonizing over her dilemma.
She telephoned Jim Epstein and described the situation. Epstein contacted Whitacre, who immediately called Taylor. The voice mail was a private number, he said, urging her to keep the code a secret.
Finally, Taylor headed back. Her decision stood, she told the lawyers. She was not revealing the code.
About two hours later, Taylor was at her desk when the telephone rang. It was Brian Peterson, Whitacre’s successor as head of the Bioproducts Division.
“Liz,’’ Peterson said, “I’m afraid we’re going to have to transfer you out of the division. We’re moving you over to a secretarial job in the plant.’’
Taylor was shocked. “Why?’’ she asked. “Why can’t I stay at my regular job?’’
There was little choice, Peterson replied.
“In the main office, sensitive information would cross your desk,’’ he said. “And ADM doesn’t trust you anymore.’’
• • •
In an unassuming office building in downtown Chicago, a swarm of law-enforcement officials stood outside the unmarked door to room 1603. They pushed the buzzer and waited, keenly aware that someone was m
ost likely watching them with the camera embedded in the ceiling. The wait dragged on, and the prosecutors were getting ready to buzz again when someone answered. The officials walked inside the room, one of the office sites for the Chicago FBI.
It was the morning of September 5. The officials—Spearing, Mackay, and Nixon from the Fraud Section, along with Ed Herbst from the FBI—were shown to a conference room. They were joined by D’Angelo and Bassett, as well as their supervisor on the Whitacre case, Dave Grossman.
After almost a month of delay, Whitacre was finally going to sit down that day for another interview. The air in the room was electric. Grossman was particularly annoyed. There were seven people here, all to interview one guy. D’Angelo and Bassett were top agents, he thought—they didn’t need prosecutors holding their hands. Grossman felt sure it would prevent them from gaining Whitacre’s trust—the first step toward getting a confession. Grossman had voiced his concerns to Washington earlier, yet now everyone was here, as if he had never said a word.
Grossman looked around the conference room. “How many are going to this interview?’’ he asked.
“All of us,’’ Spearing responded.
“That’s ridiculous,’’ Grossman said. “These are two experienced agents. You don’t need to be here.’’
“It’s important for us to be here,’’ Spearing said.
“Who’s running this investigation?’’ Grossman said sharply. “Is it the FBI?’’
Spearing spoke slowly. “This is a very sensitive case and has very large ramifications. DOJ is going to help run this investigation.’’
The meeting quickly became heated. Grossman demanded that the agents be allowed to do their work unhindered, while Spearing insisted with equal vehemence that the prosecutors would be part of a Whitacre interview. D’Angelo and Bassett took it all in, saying nothing.
“Look, this is our investigation!’’ Spearing finally lashed out. “If you don’t want to work on it with us, fine. We’ll get agents who will.”
Grossman was on his feet. “Fine!’’ he snapped. “We’re out of it!’’
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