FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                         CRM
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 10, 1997                           (202) 514-2008
                                               TDD (202) 514-1888

           FORMER ADM EXECUTIVE PLEADS GUILTY TO FRAUD

     Washington, D.C.--- The Department Of Justice announced that
Mark E. Whitacre, the former president of the BioProducts
Division of the Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM), today
entered pleas of guilty to charges of wire fraud, money
laundering, conspiracy to defraud the IRS, filing false income
tax return, and interstate transportation of stolen property. 
 
     Whitacre, 40, of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, entered his
plea before U.S. District Court Judge Harold Baker in Urbana,
Illinois.

     Whitacre admitted in his pleas that he had fraudulently
taken nearly $9 million from ADM when he was an executive with
the agricultural products company based in Decatur, Illinois. 
Whitacre admitted to obtaining the money through an elaborate
scheme involving the creation of fictitious companies and
invoices, and the extensive use of foreign bank accounts to
conceal his thefts, launder the money and defraud the IRS. 
Whitacre pled to 37 counts of the indictment returned by the
grand jury in January 1997.  The plea agreement provides that the
government will recommend that the court impose a term of
imprisonment of 78 - 97 months.

     In a separate federal price-fixing case pending in Chicago,
Whitacre is scheduled to go to trial next May along with co-
defendants Michael Andreas and Terry Wilson.

     The prosecution which resulted in today's pleas of guilty
was conducted by the Fraud Section of the Criminal Division of
the Department of Justice with the trial team of Nancy J.
Jardini, Donald B. Mackay and James J. Nixon.  The case was
investigated by Special Agent Anthony P. D'Angelo of the Chicago
office of the FBI and IRS Criminal Investigative Agent Michael
Bandy and Sue Roderick of its Springfield, Illinois' office.
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97-425