Prosecutor in Texaco Case Cites ‘Purposeful Erasures’

An investigator found evidence of “purposeful erasures” on tape recordings in a race-discrimination case that created a national scandal for Texaco Inc., a federal prosecutor said Thursday.

Asst. U.S. Atty. Stanley Okula disclosed the finding as he defended a grand jury subpoena for the micro-cassette recorder used by former Texaco executive Richard Lundwall.

He said a report commissioned by Texaco from independent investigator Michael Armstrong included an analysis of the audiotapes that indicated that the recorder’s hand controls had been used to make erasures.

“If it can be shown that Mr. Lundwall purposely erased those tapes,” Okula said, Lundwall could face charges beyond the conspiracy and obstruction of justice counts already filed against him.

Lundwall, 55, of Danbury, Conn., who lost his personnel job in a company cutback, released recordings late last year of Texaco meetings from 1994. They seemed to show him and other company officers mocking black employees and plotting to destroy evidence in a civil race-discrimination case.

Texaco, an oil and gas company based in White Plains, N.Y., settled the discrimination case for a record $176 million and agreed to a five-year federal monitoring program.

Federal criminal charges, apparently based on the tapes, were later brought against Lundwall and former Texaco treasurer Robert Ulrich, 63, of White Plains. They could be sentenced to up to 10 years in prison if convicted of obstruction of justice. Both have pleaded innocent.

Lundwall’s attorney, Ethan Levin-Epstein, said he had not seen the Armstrong report.

After keeping the report secret for months, the government announced Thursday that it would be released to the defendants.

Daniel Berger, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said that when Lundwall made the tapes available, “we did hear what sounded like the machine being turned on and off, but that wouldn’t necessarily mean erasing.”

Armstrong, who conducted the investigation and whose report could be a key document in the case, did not immediately return a call seeking comment. Texaco used it to punish four executives, including Lundwall and Ulrich, and handed it over to federal prosecutors. Plea negotiations with Lundwall broke down when he was not permitted to see the report.