United States v. Hal Brown, Jr., United States of America v. Michael F. Tobey

Defendants Brown and Tobey appeal their jury convictions for conspiracy to suppress competition for billboard sites in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1 (1988). We affirm.

FACTS

Appellant Brown is senior vice president for public affairs in a division of Gannett Company, Inc. that includes fifteen separate billboard advertising companies. One of these companies is Gannett Outdoor Company, Inc. of Southern California, an original defendant in this case and the descendant of a company that Brown’s father founded in the early 1930s. Brown himself started working part-time in the family company in 1954, and in late 1968 or early 1969 he became the company’s president and chief operating officer. He left the billboard advertising business in 1973, but returned two years later to become president and chief executive officer of the company. In 1984 he was promoted from these positions to his current, national management position. Gannett Outdoor Company, Inc. of Southern California and its predecessors will be referred to collectively as “Gannett”.

Appellant Tobey is a senior executive in Foster & Kleiser Corp. (“F & K”), a subsidiary of Metromedia, Inc. and the…