FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                          AT
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1995                      (202) 616-2771
                                               TDD (202) 514-1888


            DELAWARE JEEP PARTS COMPANY CHARGED WITH 
            RIGGING BIDS ON MILITARY SURPLUS MATERIAL

     WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Federal antitrust prosecutors charged
the owner of a Dover, Delaware, parts company today with
conspiring to rig bids on the purchase of $200,000 worth of
military surplus material sold at government auctions in the
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, area, the Department of Justice
announced.
     In a one-count felony charge filed in U.S. District Court in
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the Department of Justice's Antitrust
Division charged Thomas W. Murray with conspiring to rig bids on
the purchase of military surplus sold by the Defense
Reutilization and Marketing Office, an agency of the Defense
Logistics Agency.  The Department said the bid rigging conspiracy
occurred from 1992 through December 1994.
     According to the charge, Murray conspired with others to
suppress and eliminate competition for military surplus offered
for sale at Defense Reutilization and Marketing Office auction
sites in Mechanicsburg and Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.  Murray
and others carried out the conspiracy by discussing their bids
with one another before various items were offered for sale at
the auction sites.  These discussions included the bid price and
designating the winning bidder.
     Anne K. Bingaman, Assistant Attorney General in charge of
the Antitrust Division, said the charge resulted from an ongoing
federal grand jury investigation of bid rigging and related
violations on military surplus auctions conducted by the Defense
Reutilization and Marketing Office.  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 United States Naval Criminal Investigative Service. 
     The maximum penalty for an individual convicted of a
violation of the Sherman Act committed after November 16, 1990,
is three years in jail and the greatest of $350,000, twice the
pecuniary gain the individual derived from the crime or twice the
pecuniary loss caused to the victims of the crime.  
                               ###
95-483