FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                          AT
TUESDAY, JUNE 6, 1995                              (202) 616-2771
                                               TDD (202) 514-1888


  NEW YORK DAIRY COMPANY INDICTED IN MILK BID-RIGGING CONSPIRACY


     WASHINGTON, D.C. -- A western New York dairy company today
was charged with participating in a conspiracy to rig the price
of milk and related products sold to school districts, prisons
and psychiatric facilities under an indictment announced by the
Department of Justice's Antitrust Division.
     The one-count felony indictment, filed in U.S. District
Court in Rochester, New York, against Charlap's Dairy, of
Hamburg, New York, was the 130th criminal case filed since May
1988 as part of an ongoing federal investigation of collusion in
the dairy industry.
     The Department said that Charlap's and others conspired to
rig bids, allocate contracts and refrain from bidding
competitively against one another to supply milk and related
products to school districts and state institutions in violation
of the Sherman Act.  The conspiracy began sometime prior to the
mid-1980s and continued until at least mid-1992, the Department
said.
     Anne K. Bingaman, Assistant Attorney General in charge of
the Antitrust Division, said the charges arose in connection with
a grand jury investigation in western New York into collusive
practices by dairy products suppliers.  
     The investigation was conducted by the Division's New York
Field Office, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the
Antitrust Bureau of the New York State Attorney General's Office.
     To date, 66 corporations and 59 individuals have been
convicted and a total of approximately $59 million in fines
imposed in cases involving the supply of dairy products to public
school districts.  Some 29 individuals have been sentenced to
serve an average of approximately seven months imprisonment. 
Sixteen grand juries in 12 states continue to investigate the
milk industry.
     The maximum penalty for a corporation convicted under the
Sherman Act for a violation occurring after November 16, 1990, is
a fine not to exceed the greatest of $10 million, twice the
pecuniary gain the corporation derived from the crime, or twice
the pecuniary loss caused to the victims of the crime.
                               ###
95-316