Chicago - Closing arguments began in a federal antitrust case against three current and former executives of agribusiness firm Archer Daniels Midland Co. that could land the son of the company's chairman in jail.
Jurors could begin deliberating soon as the two-month-old criminal price- fixing case nears completion, defense attorneys said.
Michael Andreas, son of ADM Chairman Dwayne Andreas, and former ADM executives Terrance Wilson and Mark Whitacre are charged with fixing prices and allocating sales of lysine, a feed additive used to spur growth in swine and poultry. If convicted, they each face up to three years in prison and $350,000 in fines.
ADM pleaded guilty in 1996 to fixing lysine and citric acid prices and paid a $100 million fine. Wilson, Andreas and Whitacre have pleaded not guilty. The trial, which features as many lawyers as jurors, began in July in U.S. District Court.
In the prosecution's closing argument, U.S. Attorney Scott Lassar reviewed weeks of high-tech, multimedia testimony that includes hundreds of hours of audio and videotapes secretly recorded by Whitacre, who was serving as a Federal Bureau of Investigation informant from 1992 to 1995.
Whitacre was initially granted immunity from prosecution in exchange for his cooperation, but the deal was later scrapped when the FBI found out Whitacre had embezzled millions of dollars from ADM. He is currently serving a nine-year prison sentence.
“This case has an arsenal of smoking guns,” Lassar said during his closing argument.
He replayed snippets of secretly recorded audio and video tapes on giant television screens and computer monitors set up for the judge, jury, attorneys and spectators.
The tapes show a series of meetings held around the globe in which prosecutors allege ADM entered into a deal with its competitors to fix the $650 million global lysine market. Prosecutors also called several witnesses, many of them executives at ADM's rivals who agreed to cooperate with the government in exchange for immunity.
The defense called one witness, and none of the three defendants took the stand.
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