Mark Whitacre
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mark Whitacre (born 1957) was an executive at the Archer Daniels Midland Company, where he was the key insider informant responsible for the 1996 conviction of the company in a price fixing conspiracy centered on lysine, an animal feed additive. When first hired by ADM in 1989 at the age of 32, Whitacre was the youngest divisional president in the history of the company.
It was, at the time, the largest case of its kind in U.S. history. Convicted and sent to prison in 1998, Whitacre was, as of June 2004, in his sixth year of incarceration. While in prison, he has been a model inmate and earned numerous advanced degrees. Whitacre and his wife of 26 years, Ginger, have three children.
The story of the price-fixing conspiracy and the involvement of Whitacre was the subject of The Informant (ISBN 0-7679-0327-7), by Kurt Eichenwald, the New York Times reporter who investigated and reported on the scandal and the prosecution as it unfolded.
Whitacre applied for a Presidential Pardon in 2003, 2004, and 2005 -- with no success -- on the basis that the extensive co-operation that he provided to the FBI by wearing a wiretap and gathering evidence that enabled the Justice Department to prosecute ADM dwarfs any charges of fraud against Whitacre. In fact, many individuals knowledgeable about Whitacre's case regard the fraud charges that landed Whitacre behind bars as a miscarriage of justice, or at the very least greatly exaggerated charges. This position is strongly supported by the FBI supervisor in charge of Whitacre and the sting operation that was conducted against ADM at the time. Other supporters say that the imprisonment of Whitacre demonstrates how dangerous it can be to become a whistleblower, given the power of some corporations and their leaders to exact retribution against the whistleblower. In Whitacre's case, there is some evidence, although unproven, that then-Chairman of ADM, Dwayne Andreas, exerted undue influence at the time on focusing the case away from the company and toward Mark Whitacre.
Whitacre's Pardon Request was approved by the Pardon Attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice in 2003. The Request is supported by the Supervising Officer of the FBI, by former Attorney General John Ashcroft, and even by the former U.S. Attorney who prosecuted Whitacre. Despite strong recommendations from these and many other credible sources that Whitacre be granted a pardon by the President of the United States, President George W. Bush has so far (October 2005) failed to grant Whitacre any form of Executive Clemency.
The screenplay for a movie about Whitacre and ADM has been written but remains on the shelf, the property of Warner Bros. Studios. Another book, FALLEN STAR: MY LIFE AS THE INFORMANT, is an autobiography that Whitacre wrote while in the Pensacola Federal Prison Camp (ghostwritten by Stevin R. Hoover, which see). Due to waning interest in Whitacre's case, however, this book has yet to attract the interest of publishers. Absent any grant of Executive Clemency, Whitacre is not scheduled to be released from prison until June, 2007.
[edit] External links
- ADM: WHO'S NEXT?, a MacNeil/Lehrer news report from the time
- "The Fix Is In", a RealAudio broadcast from This American Life: "[...] we hear from New York Times reporter Kurt Eichenwald, whose book The Informant outlines how a shadowy cabal of men in suits actually sat down together around a table and set worldwide food prices (leading to the largest antitrust fine in U.S. history)."
- excerpts from The Informant
