WASHINGTON, D.C. — A northern Texas magazine distributor agreed to plead guilty today to conspiring to allocate customers and territories in distributing magazines and other periodicals in the Dallas/Fort Worth and Waxahachie, Texas areas, said the Department of Justice.

The Department's Antitrust Division filed a one-count criminal case in U.S. District Court in Dallas today, charging that C&S News Agency Inc. of Waxahachie, Texas, participated in the conspiracy in 1994 and 1995.

As part of the plea agreement between C&S News and the Department, Mark A. Cohen, owner of C&S News, will cooperate in the ongoing investigation. The agreement is subject to court approval.

Wholesale magazine distributors like C&S News receive magazines and other periodicals from publishers and national distributors. They then distribute the magazines and other periodicals to local retailers for sale to the general public.

According to the Department, C&S News and unidentified co-conspirators agreed on which of them would distribute magazines to particular customers in certain geographic areas. They also agreed to refrain from soliciting customers within each other's designated territories during 1994 and 1995.

Joel I. Klein, Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Department's Antitrust Division, said this is the first case filed as a result of an investigation being conducted by the Antitrust Division's Cleveland Field Office with the assistance of the U.S. Attorney's Office in Dallas and the Dallas Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

According to Klein, the investigation into the magazine and periodical distribution industry is continuing.

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

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