Prosecutors Seeking Stiff
Penalty For ADM Vice Honcho

CHICAGO —(AP)— Federal prosecutors say former Archer Daniels Midland Co. vice president Michael Andreas remains unrepentant despite his conviction on price-fixing charges and should get the maximum sentence.

Andreas shows ``appalling arrogance and an obstinate refusal to accept the jury's verdict,'' the prosecutors say in court papers. They want U.S. District Judge Blanche Manning to sentence him to the maximum 36 months.

They also want her to fine him $25 million for his part in a scheme to fix the global price of lysine, a livestock feed additive.

Andreas, son of politically connected ADM Chairman Emeritus Dwayne Andreas, was convicted along with Terrance Wilson, former head of ADM's corn division, and imprisoned ADM biochemist Mark Whitacre. All three are to be sentenced Feb. 26.

Whitacre, once extolled as a possible successor to Dwayne Andreas, launched the federal investigation of ADM by claiming that Japanese rivals were sabotaging the Decatur-based agribusiness giant's lysine operation.

He asked for millions of dollars to pay off the saboteurs. Instead, the FBI arrived to investigate. He told the agents that Andreas and Wilson were joining with Asian competitors in rigging the global lysine market.

He wore a hidden microphone as an undercover mole for the FBI within ADM as agents set out to build their price-fixing case. But he later fell out with the government and ended up convicted of price-fixing himself.

He also pleaded guilty to swindling ADM out of $10 million in expense money and was sent to federal prison for nine years.

The defendants denied taking part in any plan to fix prices.

Prosecutors in court papers described Andreas as ``the leader of ADM's ruthless campaign to make its competitors its friends and treat its customers as enemies.'' They said Andreas shows a ``disdain for the law.''

Defense attorneys, led by Washington-based John Bray, claim in their own court papers that, far from fixing prices, ADM defended consumers by confronting ``a dangerous and predatory Asian cartel.''

Andreas, the defense says, ``was not reacting out of greed but was in fact acting in economic self defense'' and that his actions were ``at worst an errant attempt to abide by the law in one of the law's grayest areas.''

They say that deserves less than a maximum sentence.

Prosecutors also want a maximum three year sentence and heavy fine for Wilson, documents show. But Wilson's attorney, Reid Weingarten, is asking for home detention and a fine of $350,000 or less, saying his client is in ill health and has a troubled family life.

Whitacre is seeking a sentence concurrent with the time he is serving in the embezzlement case, said defense attorney Bill T. Walker. He said that Whitacre has no assets with which to pay a fine.