Informant (64 page)

“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.’’

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.’’

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.

“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.

“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.

C
HAPTER
17

T
hat 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 asked. “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.

“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 baby-sit 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.’’

“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.’’

“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.

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.

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.’’

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.’’

“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?’’

“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.