“Anyone else know about this transaction?’’
“No. Just Mark and me.’’
“What happened to the money sent to Switzerland?’’
“Well, some time before, Mark and I went to the Cayman Islands, and we both set up bank accounts there. And after we got the money in Switzerland, Mark told me to transfer it to the accounts in the Caymans.’’
“How much did each of you get?’’
“Well, I got something like $170,000 to $190,000, which included the money I lost to the Nigerians, and some extra to pay taxes. The remainder of it, like four hundred thousand dollars, went to Mark in his Caymans account.’’
D’Angelo asked a few more questions about how the Caymans accounts had been set up. “Now, what happened to the money you received?’’
Hulse looked down at the table again, almost laughing.
“I took a bunch of it out of the account in 1992 to invest in a company called something like American National Securities, some brokerage firm about to go public.’’
Hulse said he invested $50,000 in the brokerage, while Whitacre put in $150,000.
“Where are the shares now?’’
Hulse said he didn’t know. Someone named Jerome Schneider was involved in the deal and was supposed to have transferred the shares to a New York brokerage. But now, Hulse said, he didn’t know where the shares were.
“Who knew Schneider?’’ D’Angelo asked.
“Whitacre found him,’’ Hulse said. “He saw some advertisement from Schneider in an airline magazine, like Delta magazine. Schneider advertises in those publications about how to set up offshore bank accounts.’’
“Okay. What happened to the rest of the money?”
“In late 1993, I moved about $141,000 from my Caymans account to Mark’s.’’
D’Angelo blinked. “You sent it to Mark?’’
“Yeah,’’ Hulse said, nodding. “Mark was getting big returns because he had a managed account, you know, where somebody’s making investments for him. But I didn’t have enough for that type of account. So Mark let me put my money in his account for larger returns, and promised to give it back later, whenever I wanted.”
“So how did you do?’’
Hulse made a face. “Not well. Mark told me in 1994 that I had only earned like five or six percent.’’
D’Angelo wrote down the percentages. He wondered if Whitacre had been skimming money from his friend. Who was managing the account? he asked.
“In the Caymans? A guy name Beat Schweizer.’’
Beat Schweizer? The investigators were jolted. Whitacre had said he met Schweizer in Germany, while working for Degussa. What was the man doing in the Caymans?
“Schweizer eventually left the Caymans bank and set up his own business in Switzerland,’’ Hulse said.
“Did you have any other contact with him?’’
“No. He tried to solicit my business when he went out on his own. But I didn’t do any other business with him.’’
D’Angelo brought out documents provided by Williams & Connolly. Hulse identified many of them as being bogus invoices and letters he had created.
After reviewing the documents, Hulse assured the investigators that he had told them about all of his transactions with Whitacre.
“Do you know about other ADM employees doing similar transactions?’’
Hulse looked nervously over to his lawyer, and nodded.
“Reinhart Richter,’’ he said softly.
“How do you know about him?’’
Breaking in, Zenner explained about Richter’s call on the voice-mail system.
“Do you have a copy of the message?’’ D’Angelo asked.
Zenner reached for the telephone on the table.
“Why don’t we call his voice mail right now?’’ Zenner asked. “He saved it.’’
• • •
Once they learned that Richter’s voice mail still existed, the investigators wanted a copy. One prosecutor hustled out of the room, coming back with a tape recorder.
Hulse looked down at the table, shaking his head.
“I don’t feel right about this,’’ he told Zenner. “Reinhart’s a friend.’’
“You don’t have a choice here, Sid,’’ Zenner said. “They need to hear this.’’
The investigators watched, unmoved. If Hulse didn’t want them to hear this, it never should have been mentioned. Finally, Hulse relented. They called the ADM voice-mail system on a speakerphone. As Richter’s words filled the room, tears streamed down Hulse’s face.
“I feel terrible about this,’’ he muttered. “Just terrible.’’
After listening to the message twice, D’Angelo asked if Hulse knew of any other wrongdoing at ADM. Hulse repeated rumors he had heard from Whitacre. He had been talking to Whitacre a lot, he said.
“I called him when I saw that story in the newspaper about the $2.5 million theft,’’ Hulse said. “I was worried that some of my money was tied up in that.’’
“What did Whitacre tell you?’’
“He said not to worry,’’ he sighed. “He told me ADM is in trouble.’’
Hulse and his lawyers left about fifteen minutes later. By the time they were on the elevator, the prosecutors and agents were whooping it up.
A taped confession! It wasn’t often that any of them had come across evidence this strong so quickly. Richter apparently had been trying to coordinate his story with Hulse and Allison, and in the process had cooked himself.
“This is great,’’ Don Mackay giggled.
Mackay looked over at D’Angelo and Nixon.
“Well,’’ he said, “looks like we need to go down and speak with Mr. Richter.’’
Reinhart Richter was potentially the key to everything. Of that, the Williams & Connolly lawyers felt sure. With Richter’s help, Mark Whitacre would be beyond redemption.
By early September, the defense lawyers—using investigators coordinated by Kroll Associates, the renowned corporate detective agency—had tracked down money that went to Richter, Hulse, and Allison. Now ADM held all the cards. On September 13, the day after Hulse’s FBI interview, Williams & Connolly offered Richter a deal.
In exchange for Richter’s cooperation in the investigations of Whitacre, ADM would keep him as an employee. He would be required to repay, on mutually agreeable terms, the money traced to him—$180,966. Williams & Connolly would then work to make sure that Richter received immunity from the Justice Department.
The terms seemed fabulous. But Richter demurred. He would have to think about it, he said.
Hulse and Allison were not treated quite so gently.
That same morning, the two were notified that they were being fired, and were immediately barred from the office. Their passwords to the voice-mail system were deleted. They would never be allowed access to ADM again.
At Emory University’s business school, Ross Johnson strode to a podium, ready to take questions from the assembled students, faculty, and alumni. Johnson had come to give a speech about his old company, RJR Nabisco, and the famous takeover battle that had engulfed it. But one member of the audience wanted to know about Johnson’s work as an ADM director. What could he say about events unfolding there?
Johnson smiled.
“It’s a pretty exciting experience when you find out that one of your top division presidents has been recording everything you’ve said for two and a half years,’’ he said. “It’s a mystery.’’
The idea that Whitacre was a Boy Scout who went to the FBI with stories of price-fixing made no sense, he said.
“The FBI—who have got some good scumbags in there too; it’s almost a criminal mentality—they came in and got the goods on this guy,” Johnson remarked. “For immunity, he signed this great, long agreement.’’
But once the case went public, the company found that Whitacre had shoved his hand deep into the till, Johnson said.
“Then, you know, he tried to commit suicide,’’ Johns
on continued. “But he did it in a six-car garage, which, I think, if you’re going to do it, that’s the place to do it.’’
The audience laughed.
In the end, Johnson said, he had no idea how everything would come out.
“But certainly we feel a lot better about it today than when it came over the air and the seventy FBI agents arrived in Decatur,’’ he said. “But they love to do that; they like to extort. Their technique is to get the gun on somebody and then put the pressure on. And then that puts the pressure on somebody else.”
Johnson smiled. “Stay tuned,’’ he snickered.
As he spoke, Johnson thought nothing of the nearby video camera, recording his every word. But soon, transcripts of that tape would appear in magazines and newspapers. Anyone in the country would be able to read his description of the nation’s premier law enforcement agency as being little more than a bunch of hoodlums.
Dick Beattie of Simpson Thacher listened thoughtfully to the latest idea from Williams & Connolly. The government was responsible for Whitacre’s actions, and he stole money. His cooperation agreement prevented him from reporting wrongdoing—part of his fiduciary obligation. ADM had been harmed. The next move was obvious, Aubrey Daniel argued. ADM should sue the Justice Department for damages.
The presentation ended. Beattie smiled, his blue eyes twinkling. And then he laughed out loud.
Before taking his seat, Whitacre glanced around the Chinese restaurant in downtown Ithaca, New York. He looked at the two men accompanying him, telling them that he needed to sit facing the door. With everything that was happening with ADM, Whitacre said, he had to be prepared for anything.
The two men, Dr. Colin Campbell and his son, Nelson, nodded appreciatively. Dr. Campbell, a professor at Cornell University, had served more than a decade before on Whitacre’s doctoral thesis committee.
Their dinner this night had come about through serendipity. A few weeks before, Dr. Campbell had been contacted by Sharon Walsh of the Washington Post as she was preparing her article about Whitacre’s background. The reporter’s questions had raised his curiosity, and Dr. Campbell had decided to reach out to his former student.
As he spoke with Whitacre, Dr. Campbell was struck with an idea. He and his son were operating a small start-up company, which was working on a system to identify predictors of disease in human blood. But neither man had much business experience. And now, this former ADM executive—a man who had fought to do the right thing—was available. It seemed a perfect match, and Dr. Campbell had invited Whitacre to Ithaca to discuss the idea.
Just the first few minutes of their dinner at the Chinese restaurant left the Campbells awed at the events swirling around Whitacre. He declined their offers to meet other Cornell professors; better, he said, to keep a low profile.
As they enjoyed their meal, Whitacre said that ADM was out to get him for something he hadn’t done, and explained the circumstances surrounding his suicide attempt.
By the end of the meal, the Campbells were a little frightened, but also excited. Whitacre seemed to have great ideas. If he could run ADM’s giant Bioproducts Division, he certainly could handle their tiny company, which would soon be christened Future Health Technologies. Enthralled, they offered him the job of chief executive.
Whitacre’s first day would be October 1. He would open offices for the company just outside Chicago.
Tired from his travels, Reinhart Richter sat at the dining table in the Whitacres’ kitchen in their new suburban Chicago home. Richter had not flown home since his meeting with Williams & Connolly. Even though his lawyer had told Richter to stay away from Whitacre, he could not resist visiting his old friend.
So far, the visit had been odd. Whitacre had picked up Richter at O’Hare Airport that afternoon and then stopped on the way home for a psychiatrist’s appointment. Richter had puttered around the waiting room until Whitacre emerged.
Sometime later, after they settled at the family’s kitchen table, Whitacre pulled out a slip of paper.
“Listen, I’ve got what I promised,’’ he said, passing the paper to Richter.
Richter glanced down. It was a check for $425,000 written to him on a Swiss bank account, one of the three checks that Daniel Briel had sent weeks before through Mike Gilbert, Whitacre’s brother-in-law in Ohio. Richter felt elated; he had begun to worry that he would never see this money.
“Thank you, Mark,’’ he said. The two men always spoke in English; Richter thought Whitacre’s German was poor.
“Hey, I promised,’’ Whitacre said. “But it’s getting hard. ADM’s trying to freeze my account in Switzerland.’’
The conversation continued on for some time. Whitacre mentioned how he had been pursued by ADM. Mick Andreas himself had called, Whitacre said, threatening to kill him if he disclosed the company’s other dirty secrets. As Richter listened, the questions in his mind became overwhelming. He decided to broach one, about a lie that Whitacre had told him personally.
“Mark,’’ he said softly, “what about this story of the adoption? Why did you come up with it?’’
Whitacre waved his hand dismissively. “I had my reasons,’’ he said. “It’s not important, anyway.’’
On September 21, Jim Epstein called Agent Bassett with interesting news. Whitacre had spoken several times with Reinhart Richter. And Whitacre was telling Epstein that Richter was backing up his story.
Richter had been interviewed by ADM about the diversion of almost $200,000, Epstein said.
“Mark told me that Richter indicated to the lawyers he had obtained the money with the full knowledge and approval of Jim Randall, ADM’s president,’’ Epstein continued. “The ADM lawyer asked Richter to drop Randall from the story.’’
But when Richter refused, he was placed on leave. “Mark says that Richter believes that happened because he wouldn’t change his story.’’
Richter could also back up other information, Epstein added. Richter had been present two years before when Whitacre had spoken with Howard Buffett about the offshore payments received by many ADM executives. Whitacre was saying that Richter was also present when Dwayne Andreas offered a Mexican politician a two-million-dollar bribe.
“There was one other thing,’’ Epstein said. “Mark says that Richter heard Randall offer four million dollars to Dr. Chris Jones of Kronos, so that he would leave the company and start a methionine plant for ADM in Mexico.’’
Bassett wrote that down, not quite familiar with the name. He didn’t immediately realize that Jones was the central player in the methionine criminal investigation being handled in Mobile.
For more than a week, the antitrust prosecutors were finally feeling optimistic. A plea deal with Terry Wilson seemed imminent. To move it along, they had allowed Wilson’s lawyer, Reid Weingarten, to review videotapes. He seemed impressed, particularly with the Hawaii tape.
Cooperation from Terry Wilson would change everything. He could probably testify about price-fixing in other products; he could even serve as the prime witness in the lysine case if Whitacre’s frauds proved fatally damaging.
But on September 27, the bubble burst. Weingarten informed prosecutors that his client might take a plea in a normal case—but this was not a normal case. Wilson was fiercely dedicated to the Andreases and would never turn on that family. Wilson also had a son who was very sick, who needed him. The Andreases had been very supportive of Wilson and his family. He owed them. Put simply, Wilson loved ADM and wanted the company to win.
Mann accused Weingarten of tricking the prosecutors into showing him the tapes when no deal was possible. But Weingarten dismissed that, saying he had acted in good faith. Still, the prosecutors had their answer. The only way Terry Wilson would be testifying in this case was if he chose to do so—as a defendant.
In Hunt Valley, Maryland, David Page pushed through the glass door at the front of a Marriott Hotel. He followed the prearranged instructions, and in no time located Laurie Fulton and Bill Murray, the two lawy
ers from Williams & Connolly who had come to town to speak with him.
As he met the lawyers, Page exuded confidence. Even though he had been hired at ADM while continuing to work at another company, Page believed he and Whitacre had been clever. No one would figure out what they had done.
The lawyers asked a few opening questions. What, specifically, had been Page’s responsibilities at ADM?
Page smiled. And then he lied and lied.
Early on the morning of October 10, Bassett and D’Angelo drove from downtown Chicago to Prospect Heights, a suburban town that is home to Household International. The agents found the finance company and parked in the lot. They walked to the building, knowing the next few minutes were sure to be interesting. Ron Ferrari, the person they had come to interview, had no idea the FBI was on the way.
The list of easy interviews in the case had rapidly dwindled to Ferrari, the former San Francisco 49er who was Whitacre’s friend. Richter and Schweizer were out of the country, and Allison had already retained a lawyer. That left Ferrari as the last person mentioned in Whitacre’s interview who could still be confronted without hassles.
Inside, the agents asked a receptionist for Ferrari.
“We’re here to see him about a confidential matter,’’ Bassett said.
A few minutes later, Ferrari showed up in the waiting area, looking nervous as the agents identified themselves.
“Oh,’’ he said anxiously, “I’m surprised you guys came to see me already.’’
Interesting. Apparently, at some level, Ferrari expected them. He showed the agents to a private room.
“We want to talk to you about Mark Whitacre from ADM,’’ Bassett said. “We’re just here to get at the truth on this. We’re hearing a lot of different things from different people. And we want to give you an opportunity to tell your side of the story.’’
Ferrari nodded. “Okay.’’
“First,’’ Bassett said, “why don’t you give us your background.’’
For several minutes, Ferrari told the agents about his education and profession. The story jumped around, with Ferrari repeatedly mentioning that he had “played ball.’’ Whitacre never mentioned the professional football, so the agents had no idea what Ferrari was talking about.
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