The Justice Department will not criminally charge former top executive and other former high-ranking officers of Chiquita Brands International over the company's payments to a Colombian organization on the State Department's list of terrorist groups. After the company pleaded guilty, three of its officers were under investigation for authorizing and approving the payments after federal prosecutors warned them that it was violating the nation's anti-terrorism laws. Chiquita argued that the three men who had disclosed the bribe payments to Justice officials continued the payments while waiting for advice that never came from then-Assistant Attorney General Michael Chertoff and then-Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson.