FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                          AT
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 1997                       (202) 616-2771
                                               TDD (202) 514-1888

        JUSTICE DEPARTMENT CHARGES OHIO PARTS COMPANY WITH
              RIGGING BIDS ON SURPLUS MILITARY GOODS


     WASHINGTON, D.C. -- An Ohio parts company was charged today
by the Department of Justice with conspiring to rig bids of
surplus military material at government auctions.

     In a one-count felony charge filed in U.S. District Court in
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the Department's Antitrust Division
charged Sam Winer Motors Inc. of Akron, Ohio, with conspiring to
rig bids on the purchase of military surplus sold in interstate
commerce by the Defense Reutilization and Marketing Service--an
office of the Defense Logistics Agency.  The Department said the
conspiracy took place from 1992 through October 1994.

     This is the fifth case brought as the result of the
Department's antitrust investigation into bid rigging and related
violations at surplus military auctions conducted by the Defense
Reutilization and Marketing Service.

     According to the charges, the company conspired with others to
suppress and eliminate competition for military surplus offered for
sale at Defense Reutilization and Marketing Service auction sites
in Mechanicsburg and Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.  Sam Winer Motors
and co-conspirators carried out the conspiracy by discussing their
bids with one another before various items were offered up for sale
at the auction sites.  Included in these discussions were the
price, the bid and who was to be the winning bidder.

     Joel I. Klein, Acting Assistant Attorney General in charge of
the Department's Antitrust Division, said the charges resulted from
a federal investigation of bid rigging and related violations at 
surplus military auctions conducted by the Defense Reutilization
and Marketing Service.  The case was filed by the Antitrust
Division's Philadelphia Field Office with the assistance of the
Defense Criminal Investigative Service, the investigative arm of
the Department of Defense Inspector General, and the U.S. Naval
Criminal Investigative Service.

     The maximum penalty for a company convicted of a violation of
the Sherman Act is a fine of $10 million, twice the pecuniary gain
the corporation derived from the crime, or twice the pecuniary loss
suffered by the victims of the crime, whichever is greater.
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97-085