WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Three Virginia commercial glass company executives agreed to plead guilty today to conspiring to rig bids and raise the prices paid on commercial glass installation contracts by several Virginia businesses and state institutions, including state universities and hospitals, said the Department of Justice. The Department today filed three separate felony charges, in U.S. District Court in Roanoke, Virginia, against Frederick Racer Glick, sales manager and chief estimator of Glass & Metals LLC, of Harrisonburg; Ted Riley Bratton, vice president of Jefco Inc., of Roanoke; and Mitchell Snead, owner, operator, and president of The Snead Company Inc., of Chesterfield. The three are charged with participating in a conspiracy to rig bids on more than $6 million in contracts to install commercial plate glass in new or existing buildings in southwestern Virginia from April 1996 to November 1997.

According to the charges, Glick and Bratton discussed and agreed on the price each firm would bid on installation contracts to customers in southwestern Virginia. Mitchell Snead, supplier of products to Jefco and Glass & Metals, participated in the conspiracy by encouraging Glick and Bratton to rig bids, then receiving kickbacks for his role in the scheme.

Today's cases are the result of the joint efforts of the Litigation I Section of the Antitrust Division in Washington, D.C. and the U.S. Attorney's Office in Roanoke, Virginia, with the assistance of the Roanoke office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The investigation is continuing.

Glick, Bratton, and Snead are charged with violating Section One of the Sherman Act, which carries a maximum penalty of three years imprisonment and a $350,000 fine for individuals. The fine may be increased to twice the gain derived from the crime or twice the loss suffered by the victims of the crime, if either of those amounts is greater than the statutory maximum fine.