The Informant

by Kurt Eichenwald

  “Well, you know about ADM and this guy Whitacre?’’

  Bassett had read the newspapers. “What about him?’’

  “Well, there’s been allegations that he’s been stealing money while working for us,’’ Grossman said. “We need to do a separate investigation of that. Tony D’Angelo will be working the case with you, but the two of you need to get out to Washington for this interview tomorrow.’’

  Grossman gave Bassett a few more details, and the agent said he would take care of it. He disconnected the call, then dialed the travel service used by the Bureau. He needed to arrange a flight right away. That evening, Whitacre called his longtime gardener, Rusty Williams. The Whitacres were staying nearby, with Ginger’s parents. They had left Moweaqua once movers had packed the furniture for Tennessee. But Whitacre told Williams that he needed somebody at the old house early the next morning. ADM was coming by to pick up his company car at 6:15. Williams agreed to be there. Whitacre had done a lot for him; he had no problem returning the favor.

  The next morning, Wednesday, August 9, Whitacre climbed out of bed early. He was scheduled to take the first flight to Washington for his next interview with the Fraud Section. By 4:30, he was showered, shaved, and dressed. In the darkness of the bedroom, he looked down on Ginger as she slept. He leaned over and hugged her.

  “Good luck,’’ she mumbled, half awake.

  Mark gripped her for a few extra seconds. He seemed petrified.

  “It’ll be okay,’’ she said soothingly, stroking his arm. “You’ll do fine.’’

  Finally letting go, Mark headed to the door. As he left the room, he picked up a small stack of envelopes. Before he did anything else, he needed to find a mailbox. He wanted to send some letters right away. At about seven that same morning, Special Agents D’Angelo and Bassett met at the security checkpoint in the United Airlines terminal at Chicago O’Hare. Neither knew quite yet what to expect with this Whitacre interview. It seemed odd that both the witness and the agents were flying from Chicago to Washington. On one level, the agents figured that the travel just underscored the sensitivity of the case. But they feared that it also could be a sign that the prosecutors might be planning to micromanage everything. Eich_0767903277_5p_02_r1.qxd 10/11/01 3:57 PM Page 383

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  As they waited, Bassett and D’Angelo compared notes. Neither of them had seen anything yet about Whitacre’s interview two days before. But the acting SAC, Ed Worthington, had briefed D’Angelo more fully. Already, he knew this was a case where the agents would be stepping on the turf of the Springfield division; the agents there were sure to be livid. On the other hand, if Bassett and D’Angelo missed anything, ADM’s lawyers would scream that they were trying to protect Springfield. It was a no-win situation.

  But they would come out of this okay, D’Angelo said.

  “If it doesn’t work out,’’ he said, “we can both still get jobs flipping hamburgers at Wendy’s.’’

  About that time, Rusty Williams crossed the road in front of the Whitacre house, walking toward their stables.

  Whitacre had called his gardener again that morning, saying that ADM was not sending anyone to the house until 7:45. But Williams had already dressed, and said he would head over. Whitacre had continued to try and persuade him to stay home, but something about his boss’s demeanor had bothered Williams. He had decided to go to the house around seven anyway. He had nothing better to do. As he approached, Williams saw one of the horses with Terry Yonker, the stable manager. Williams waved and walked over to him. They had a lot to talk about: With the Whitacres leaving, both would soon be looking for work.

  Just before seven o’clock, Williams started feeling uncomfortable again.

  “I’m gonna go over and check out the house, make sure everything is okay,’’ Williams said. “Want to come?’’

  The two men crossed the street, walking up the driveway toward the house. Williams headed toward the mudroom entrance. Whitacre had told him that a set of keys would be waiting for him, but Williams didn’t see any. He ran his hand across the top of the door frame. Nothing.

  “Hold on,’’ he told Yonker, walking toward the garage. Williams heard a muffled sound coming from the garage. He opened a white gate and noticed a line of gas cans sitting outside the door.

  Oh, my God. Something was wrong. He knew it. Williams pulled open the garage door and was stunned. The place was full of fumes, the temperature stifling. The motor for the BMW

  convertible was running. And in the backseat of the car was Mark Eich_0767903277_5p_02_r1.qxd 10/11/01 3:57 PM Page 384 384

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  Whitacre, his head resting on the boot of the convertible top. He was motionless.

  “No!” Williams shouted.

  He turned to Yonker. “Call 911!’’

  Williams ran into the garage and was overtaken by the fumes. He began coughing uncontrollably and was immediately chilled. Whitacre wasn’t coughing at all, Williams noticed. It might be too late; Whitacre might already be dead.

  Yanking open a door, Williams jumped into the driver’s seat and threw the car into reverse, pulling out of the garage. He heard Whitacre sigh. He wasn’t dead.

  Williams looked over to Yonker. “Cancel 911.”

  Worried that he might be making a mistake, Williams got out and paced. He glanced at Whitacre, who was still in the car. His shirt was drenched. He looked terrible. Williams shook his head and turned away.

  Yonker watched Whitacre as Williams paced away from the car. Suddenly, he saw Whitacre lift his head and look at Williams. When Williams turned back, Yonker saw Whitacre put his head back down. Yonker called Williams over and told him what he had seen. Williams was confused but figured that Yonker didn’t need to stay. He knew that the stable manager was a man who prized his privacy—

  and this was going to be anything but private.

  “Look, why don’t you go ahead and take off,’’ he said. “I’ll take care of this.’’

  Yonker thanked him and climbed into his pickup truck. Williams watched as the truck turned onto the road.

  “Hey, bud,’’ Whitacre said as Yonker pulled away. “You don’t think Terry will say anything, do you?’’

  Williams shook his head. “No, I don’t think so.’’

  Sighing, Whitacre leaned his head down. “Pull the car back into the garage.’’

  Williams protested, but Whitacre interrupted. “Bud, pull the car back into the garage,’’ he said. “Pull it back in before somebody sees me.’’

  Nodding, Williams climbed into the front seat, drove the car into the garage, and turned it off. Even with the door open, the air was thick with fumes. With the car off, Williams figured that the garage would air out quickly.

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  Williams turned around and looked at Whitacre.

  “Mark,’’ Williams said gingerly, “why did you do it?’’

  No answer.

  Then Whitacre exploded. “You fucking God!’’ he shouted, his eyes fixed on the ceiling. “You owe me!’’

  “Mark—”

  “You fucking God! You owe me! After everything I did! You fucking God! You owe me!’’

  Williams didn’t understand what was going on. This was a side of Whitacre he had never seen. He told Whitacre to wait in the car. He needed to find Ginger. He headed for the phone and called her at her parents’ house.

  “Ginger,’’ Williams said, trying to sound calm, “could you come to the house?’’

  “Why? Rusty, what’s wrong?’’

  “I just need to talk to you.’’

  Ginger got testy. “I’m not coming over unless you tell me what’s wrong.’’

  Williams took a breath. “Mark just tried to kill himself, and—”

  Ginger’s piercing screams echoed on the line. Williams tried to calm her, but it was t
oo late.

  She had hung up.

  Within minutes, a car raced up the Whitacre’s driveway. Ginger was behind the wheel, with her mother in the passenger seat. The two women jumped out of the car, almost before it came to a stop, and ran toward the garage.

  Everyone was screaming. The women pulled Whitacre out of the car to get him into the fresh air. As he struggled his way out, a family picture dropped off his lap, clattering to the garage floor. Whitacre scrambled to the ground.

  “Give me that picture!’’ he screamed. “It’s the only thing I have left!’’

  Ginger, with the help of her mother and Williams, took Whitacre over by the pool and walked him around. He staggered but seemed all right. Within minutes, the Whitacre children arrived, hysterical. They jumped out of the car, and Whitacre gagged, as if about to vomit. They ran over and wrapped their arms around their father.

  “Rusty,’’ Ginger said, “can you walk Mark around for a few minutes? Let me look after the kids. And I’ve got to make some arrangements.’’

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  Williams walked Whitacre back to the pool.

  After talking with her children, Ginger was at a loss. If she called an ambulance, ADM would find out about the suicide attempt, and it might be used against him. She walked into the garage and picked up the phone. She decided to call a few people and look for help. Over by the pool, Whitacre seemed well enough to be on his own. Williams sat him down and headed back to the garage. He found Ginger on the telephone.

  “My dear God, Tom, the worst thing has happened,’’ Ginger was saying into the phone. “That goddamn Dwayne Andreas. He did this to him. He ought to be killed.’’

  After a few minutes, Ginger hung up, considering what she should do next. Finally, she reached a decision. Picking up her address book, she flipped through the pages, looking for Jim Epstein’s home number. She needed to let the lawyer know that his most famous client had just tried to kill himself.

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  CHAPTER 15

  By 7:30 that morning, Dr. Derek Miller had showered and dressed for work. The psychiatrist’s commute to the North Shore Treatment Center in suburban Chicago was fairly easy, but on this day Miller wanted to make rounds at the hospital. If he was going to be on time for his first scheduled appointment, he needed to leave a bit early. Before he had the chance to head out, Miller heard the rhythmic chirping of his pager. He glanced down at the screen. The answering service, as expected.

  Miller walked over to the phone and returned the call. In a soft, genial tone, the elderly psychiatrist identified himself to the operator, who told him that someone named Jim Epstein had left an urgent message. Miller knew Epstein well; the lawyer had contacted him several times when he represented people with psychiatric trouble. Miller dialed Epstein’s home in nearby Evanston.

  “Derek, thanks for calling back so quickly,’’ Epstein said. “I’ve got a client who needs help. He was a mole in a federal investigation of a food company. This morning, he shut himself in the garage with his car and tried to kill himself.’’

  Epstein explained that the attempt had failed because the man had been found by his gardener. The client clearly needed psychiatric care. Would Miller see him? Epstein asked.

  “Of course,’’ Miller responded. “I can meet with him today and evaluate him.’’

  Within fifteen minutes, the arrangements were set. Ginger agreed to drive Mark from Moweaqua to Chicago. Miller would meet them at his office in Highland Park.

  At that moment, Gert Borasky, the Tennessee real-estate agent, was making final preparations for the closing on the Whitacres’ new home. Eich_0767903277_5p_02_r1.qxd 10/11/01 3:57 PM Page 388 388

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  Thinking the family might need help before the move, she called Moweaqua to offer her assistance. Ginger answered.

  “Hello, Mrs. Whitacre, this is Gert Borasky in Tennessee. I was just calling about the house closing—’’

  Ginger cut her off. “I don’t care what happens to the closing!’’ she barked. “My husband is half dead! Our gardener just found him in the garage! Do you think I care about some stupid house closing?’’

  Borasky backpedaled, but Ginger hung up. Stunned, Borasky placed the phone back in its cradle. What was happening? Was the family all right? Was the deal off?

  She flipped through her phone listings, looking for Joseph Caiazzo, the lawyer representing the lender in the deal. She told Caiazzo of her call with Ginger, asking if he had heard anything about a suicide attempt. Caiazzo knew nothing but promised to make a few calls. A few hours later, a fax from Caiazzo arrived for Borasky. The lawyer wrote that the Whitacres’ mortgage lender had withdrawn the offer to finance the house.

  “Mr. Whitacre has informed the mortgagee that he and his family will be entering the federal witness protection program,’’ Caiazzo wrote.

  Borasky stared at the fax. She needed to notify the realtor representing the seller, Paul Myer. The news was conveyed later that day to Myer, and it sent him into a rage. There had been another offer for the house that he had turned away, and his family had already packed to leave. Whitacre had told Myer he could afford the purchase, that Washington was going to help out. And now the government was putting him into witness protection, leaving Myer hanging?

  No, sir. He wouldn’t stand for it.

  Before he was done, Myer planned to teach everyone involved—

  particularly Whitacre—a very harsh lesson.

  The Whitacres arrived later that morning at the North Shore Treatment Center, on the first floor of a Highland Park office complex. Dr. Miller appeared in the waiting room, a hint of a smile on his face. Mark looked disheveled; Ginger was obviously frazzled. The drive had been harrowing, with the couple getting lost three times. Ginger agreed to stay in the waiting room while Miller spoke with Mark. She seemed grateful for the break.

  Whitacre walked in the office, dropping into a chair.

  “Well, then,’’ Miller said. “How are you feeling?’’

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  The words rushed out. Whitacre’s speech was rapid and unnatural, spilling from one topic to the next. Still, he managed to tell the story of his work with the FBI.

  “But now, but now I’ve been accused of stealing $2.5 million,’’

  he said quickly. “That’s what they said. That I stole $2.5 million.’’

  “Did you?’’ Miller asked.

  “Yeah,’’ he said, adding that he had been taking kickbacks for the past four years.

  “I get paid five hundred thousand a year, but it hasn’t been enough. I’ve been spending about two hundred thousand more.’’

  Whitacre explained that he owned foreign bank accounts in Switzerland, Hong Kong, and the Cayman Islands.

  “Did you give any of the money to your wife?’’

  “No,’’ Whitacre said, shaking his head. He had done very little to cover his tracks.

  From what Miller heard, Whitacre behaved like a man who thought he would never be caught. Risk-taking was evident in many of his actions. Whitacre told of bringing jewelry back from overseas without paying customs duty. He often spirited thousands of dollars in undeclared cash in and out of the country, without so much as a worry.

  “What would you have done if your suitcase had been searched?’’

  Miller asked.

  Whitacre blinked. “That never occurred to me. I mean, I look respectable. Why would they search me?’’

  As Whitacre ranted, Miller jotted down the words circumlocutory and vague to describe the monologue. But he saw little sign of the depression that Ginger and Epstein had led him to expect. Whitacre said he had always succumbed to pressure from his environment. And, at ADM, the environment was corrupt. Executives fixed prices. An
d they took kickbacks. Whitacre had only fallen into wrongdoing, he said, because everyone else did it. He just wanted to be part of the gang.

  “Was that true when you were a child?’’ Miller asked. Whitacre nodded. “Yes.’’

  He had always been something of a show-off; it had always been important to him to be on top of the heap.

  “What do you remember about that?’’ Miller asked.

  “Well, one time when I was a kid, I got a new, top-of-the-line bicycle,’’ Whitacre said. “And I bragged to everybody about it. I told everybody how much it cost.’’

  He looked at Miller. “It cost ninety-nine dollars.’’

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  “How did you end up working with the FBI?’’

  “They came to me,’’ Whitacre responded.

  “Did they know you were fixing prices?’’

  “No, that wasn’t happening yet. They were just approaching a number of junior executives at ADM. They came to me because of that. I was a junior executive, and they were approaching the junior executives.’’

  That didn’t sound true. Why would the FBI approach people at ADM if no crime was taking place yet?

  Whitacre’s conversation was laced with mania. Miller decided that his new patient needed a complete medical and psychiatric work-up.

  “What I would like to do is have you checked into the hospital,’’

  Miller said. He would conduct some psychiatric tests and also make sure there was no lasting effect from the suicide attempt. Whitacre agreed, warning that there was a need for precautions. ADM was very powerful, he said. He was the main witness against the company’s executives, and they would do anything to win. They might break in to Miller’s office, maybe rifle through hospital files. If he used his insurance, ADM might find out about the hospitalization and use the information to discredit him further.

  Miller told Whitacre not to worry. He would take every precaution. He would call the hospital and arrange for Whitacre to pay by credit card. No one would know.

  Once Whitacre seemed stable, Miller called in Ginger. She told Miller how Mark had changed in recent years, becoming grandiose and intolerant. He bought things without regard to cost, she said; the family owned eight cars, including three sports cars that were almost never used.