Former Texaco Executive Indictment
UNITED STATES ATTORNEY
For Immediate Release Contact: U.S. Attorney's Office
Marvin Smilon
Stanley J. Okula, Jr.
Thomas Arena PRESS RELEASE MARY JO WHITE, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced the arrest today of RICHARD A. LUNDWALL, the former senior coordinator of personnel services of the Finance Department of Texaco, Inc., on charges of obstruction of justice. The complaint filed today in White Plains federal court charges that, in connection with a race discrimination lawsuit filed against Texaco in the Southern District of New York, Roberts v. Texaco, Inc., the attorneys for the plaintiffs learned during an August 1994 deposition of LUNDWALL that LUNDWALL and other officials in Texaco's Finance Department kept certain records relating to Texaco's promotion and development of minority employees. After LUNDWALL revealed the existence of those documents, the attorneys for the plaintiffs requested Texaco to produce them. The complaint also charges that, in the days following his deposition, LUNDWALL met with other members of the Texaco Finance Department to review the materials requested by the Roberts plaintiffs, which LUNDWALL admitted went to the "crux" of the Roberts plaintiffs' claims against Texaco. At this meeting, LUNDWALL and other Finance Department officials agreed to "hide" documents from the Roberts plaintiffs. LUNDWALL later admitted that he and others "shredded" documents requested in the lawsuit; handwritten comments contained on certain documents were deleted; and certain Finance Department officials who had their own copies of the documents were told, in words or substance, to say that they did not retain their own copies. The complaint also charges that a tape recording of LUNDWALL's August 1994 meeting with other Finance Department officials -- which was turned over to the FBI after LUNDWALL was terminated from Texaco -- corroborates LUNDWALL's admissions regarding his participation, together with others, in the destruction and concealment of documents relevant to the Roberts lawsuit. The complaint also charges that in the recorded meeting the participants, including LUNDWALL, agreed to withhold and shred a certain document because "[a]ll it could do is get us in trouble." LUNDWALL, 55, who lives in Danbury, Connecticut, was presented today on the complaint in White Plains federal court before United States Magistrate Judge LISA M. SMITH. If convicted, LUNDWALL faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Ms. WHITE praised the work of the FBI for their efforts in the investigation, which is ongoing. Assistant United States Attorneys STANLEY J. OKULA, JR. and THOMAS ARENA are in charge of the case. The charges contained in the complaint are merely accusations and the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty. ===================================================== =========== Approved:
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Before: UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, v. RICHARD A. LUNDWALL, Defendant. SEALED COMPLAINT Violation of 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1503 SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK, ss.: JOSEPH MANGAN, being duly sworn, deposes and says that he is a Special Agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and charges as follows: COUNT ONE From in or about July 1994 through August 1996, in the Southern District of New York and elsewhere, RICHARD A. LUNDWALL, the defendant, unlawfully, willfully, and knowingly did corruptly influence, obstruct, and impede, and endeavor to influence, obstruct, and impede, the due administration of justice, in that RICHARD A. LUNDWALL, the defendant, then an employee of Texaco, Inc., corruptly destroyed, concealed, and withheld documents requested by attorneys for plaintiffs in a civil lawsuit styled Roberts v. Texaco, Inc., 94 Civ. 2015 (CLB), which was pending in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. (Title 18, United States Code, Section 1503) The bases for deponent's knowledge and for the foregoing charges are, in part, as follows: 1. I am a Special Agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation ("FBI"). I am familiar with the facts and circumstances set forth below from my conversations with various witnesses and from my review of documents and tape recordings gathered in the investigation. Because this affidavit is being submitted for a limited purpose, I have not included details of every aspect of this investigation. Where conversations or statements are related herein, they are related in substance and in part unless stated otherwise. 2. I have been an FBI Agent for approximately fifteen years. During that time, I have participated in the investigation and prosecution of numerous cases involving violations of federal law, including cases relating to fraud. In addition to my own personal law enforcement training and experience, I have had numerous discussions with other law enforcement officers concerning the investigation of cases involving white collar crime. 3. Pursuant to my interview of an attorney for the Roberts plaintiffs, and my review of certain documents and tape-recordings, I have learned the following. In or about March 1994, a number of African American employees of Texaco, Inc., filed a civil employment discrimination lawsuit against Texaco in the White Plains division of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. In that lawsuit, filed as a class action and styled Roberts v. Texaco, Inc., 94 Civ. 2015 (CLB), the plaintiffs alleged, among other things, that Texaco engaged in race discrimination by failing to promote and adequately compensate African American employees of Texaco's Finance Department. 4. In order to aid the Roberts plaintiffs' ability to make appropriate requests for production of documents relating to the past employment practices in Texaco's Finance Department, the attorneys for the plaintiffs took a deposition of RICHARD A. LUNDWALL, who, at that time, was employed by Texaco as senior coordinator of personnel services within Texaco's Finance Department. During that deposition, which took place on August 5, 1994, LUNDWALL testified that, at least twice a year, he met with certain senior officers of Texaco's Finance Department -- including Texaco's Treasurer and Senior Assistant Treasurer -- to discuss "the development of women and minorities: within the Finance Department and the Finance Department's "track record to date" with respect to those development efforts. 5. LUNDWALL further testified at his deposition that, in connection with each of the aforementioned twice-a-year meetings, the Finance Department prepared a "Masterbook," which served as the agenda and which was distributed, in advance of the meetings, to each of the senior officers who attended. The "Masterbook" contained, among other things, minutes of previous meetings, statistical data that was going to be used at the meeting, and certain documents relating to the Finance Department's "long range planning" for the development of minority employees. LUNDWALL further testified that the senior officers of the Finance Department maintained documents relating to those employees considered to have the "potential for executive management positions" at Texaco. 6. Because the attorneys for the Roberts plaintiffs considered the Finance Department "Masterbook" and other documents referred to by RICHARD A. LUNDWALL at his deposition to be highly relevant to the plaintiffs claims of discrimination, the attorneys made several specific requests of Texaco to produce the "Masterbook" and related documents. Thus, during LUNDWALL's deposition on August 5, 1994, an attorney for the plaintiffs requested an attorney for Texaco to produce the "Masterbook" and other documents to which LUNDWALL had referred. Thereafter, by letter dated August 9, 1994, an attorney for the plaintiffs requested outside counsel for Texaco to produce the "Masterbook" and related documents. In addition, on August 12, 1994, attorneys for the plaintiffs served a formal document request pursuant to Rule 34 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure calling for the production by Texaco of the "the Finance Department Masterbook and all documents concerning or ever contained in such Masterbook." 7. In March 1995, Texaco produced what its attorneys represented as all of the documents relating to the finance Department's "Masterbook." 8. On or about August 1, 1996, RICHARD A. LUNDWALL, the defendant, telephoned an attorney for the Roberts plaintiffs, Cyrus Mehri, and told Mehri, among other things, that LUNDWALL was in possession of a great deal of information that would prove helpful to the plaintiffs' lawsuit against Texaco. LUNDWALL also told Mehri that he was being down-sized out of his job at Texaco and that he would be leaving Texaco by the end of August 1996. 9. On or about August 9, 1996, RICHARD A. LUNDWALL telephoned Mehri again and told him that he was in possession of tape recordings of certain Finance Department meetings, which were held in order to discuss, among other things, the development and promotability of minorities within Texaco's finance Department. On August 12, 1996, LUNDWALL met with Mehri in Connecticut and explained that one of the tape- recordings, created after the commencement of the Roberts litigation, revealed that he and other senior Finance Department officials had tampered with documents that were at "the crux of the [Roberts] case." LUNDWALL made clear to Mehri at this meeting that he had participated in the destruction of certain documents requested by the Roberts plaintiffs and highly relevant to the plaintiffs' claims. 10. Following the August 12, 1996 meeting, RICHARD A. LUNDWALL retained counsel and, in September 1996, turned over copies of two tapes to attorneys for the Roberts plaintiffs. On October 25, 1996, LUNDWALL met with the attorneys for the plaintiffs, including Cyrus Mehri, who played portions of the two tapes that LUNDWALL's attorney had provided to the attorneys for the Roberts plaintiffs. After listening to those portions, LUNDWALL indicated that the conversations captured on the tapes occurred shortly after his deposition in August 1994, and that the allusions on the tapes to "books" refers to the Finance Department Masterbooks. In addition, LUNDWALL admitted that one of the purposes of the meeting captured on the tapes was to review the materials that the Roberts plaintiffs had requested at LUNDWALL's deposition prior to producing any of those documents to the plaintiffs. LUNDWALL further admitted that one of the purposes of the meeting was to "hide" documents form the Roberts plaintiffs. LUNDWALL further admitted that (1) he and others had "shredded" portions of the Masterbooks requested by the attorneys for the plaintiffs; (2) handwritten comments were deleted from certain documents; and (3) certain Finance Department officials who had copies of the Masterbook were told, in words or substance, to say that they did not retain their own copies. 11. On or about November 6, 1996, I obtained from LUNDWALL's attorney the aforementioned two tape recordings made by LUNDWALL. After certain enhancements of the tapes, I listened to the tapes and determined that those tapes corroborate LUNDWALL's admissions regarding his participation, together with other Finance Department officials, in an effort to corruptly destroy, conceal, and withhold documents requested by the Roberts plaintiffs. For instance, after the Treasurer of Texaco indicated to LUNDWALL during the August 1994 meeting that LUNDWALL should not turn over a "restricted" version of a document that was part of the "Masterbook," LUNDWALL agreed, noting that there was "really no point in keeping" that version of the document any more because "[a]ll it could do is get us in trouble." LUNDWALL thereafter stated, "Let me shred this thing and any other restricted versions like it." At another point of the conversation, when a Finance Department official referred to a "restricted" version of minutes of prior Finance Department meetings, which were part of a Masterbook, LUNDWALL indicated that that document would not be turned over, stating, "Oh no, they're not getting this." 12. None of the restricted versions of the Masterbook documents referred to by LUNDWALL and the other Texaco Finance Department officials during the August 1994 conversation were turned over to the Roberts plaintiffs in response to the plaintiffs' discovery demands. WHEREFORE, deponent prays that a warrant he issued for the arrest of the above-named individual and that he be arrested and imprisoned or bailed as the case may be.
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Sworn to before me this
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