Jail for Box Bosses?

About the last place one would expect to find the head of a giant business is in jail. Nonetheless, there is a strong chance that R. Harper Brown, president of Container Corp. of America (1975 sales: $953 million) will spend several weeks next year in Chicago's Metropolitan Correctional Facility. He was the most important of 47 executives from 22 companies who pleaded no contest to federal charges of fixing prices on folding-cardboard boxes between 1960 and 1974. Last week Federal Judge James Parsons sentenced Brown to 60 days in jail and fined him $35,000; 14 other executives from nine companies drew sentences ranging from five to 45 days. The defendants have three weeks to plead for more lenient treatment. Even if they lose, some of them--although probably not Brown--will be eligible for "work-release" programs. That means they could report to their offices by day but would have to spend their nights locked up.

Officials of the Justice Department's antitrust division could not recall any other boss of so large a business who wound up in prison. But if Stanley Baker, head of the antitrust division, gets his way, Brown's case will be no fluke. Under Baker, a record 90 grand juries around the U.S. will probe charges of price fixing in various industries. Baker, as one of his assistants notes, sought the sentences against the carton executives "to drive home the point that price fixing is a serious crime." The clear implication: some other executives could join the box bosses behind bars.

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