Crop Insurance

August 9, 2021

Ralph Hackett, a fruit broker in California’s Central Valley, will pay $1.255 million to resolve criminal charges and civil claims arising from his role in a crop insurance fraud scheme.  In a guilty plea, Hackett acknowledged that he authorized alterations to business records and misstatements to underreport the table grapes sold by another individual, so that the individual could submit fraudulent crop insurance claims between 2012 and 2015.  Hackett agreed to pay criminal restitution of $650,000 and a civil penalty of $605,000; his prison sentence is yet to be determined.  USAO ED Cal

October 15, 2020

Seventeen defendants who collectively received nearly $900,000 in improper crop insurance indemnity payments, have agreed repay the United States.  Defendants admitted that they submitted false claims for payments to federally-backed multi-peril crop insurance policies, including by falsely stating that the tobacco crops in question had been damaged, inflating crop loss amounts, and submitted falsified documentation about the quality of the tobacco crop.  USAO ED KY

December 8, 2017

Jason Sparling agreed to pay $180,000 to settle allegations of violating the False Claims Act by submitting to the USDA an application for a drought disaster payment under the Livestock Forage Disaster Program and receiving a $95,000 payment when in fact none of Sparling’s cattle were on the drought stricken pasture during the qualifying period.  DOJ (DSD)

January 27, 2016

Milton Russ Barnhill was sentenced to 11 years in prison for conspiring with others to defraud the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation and the Farm Service Agency, both agencies of the United States, in connection with federal crop insurance claims and other federal taxpayer subsidies.  As charged, Barnhill produced crops which he sold in the names of others which he then reported on insurance claims that the crops were lost due to natural disasters.  He also placed crops and insurance policies into the names of conspirators to boost the amount of money he could collect on the insurance claims.  DOJ (EDNC)

March 23, 2015

California-based Fireman’s Fund Insurance Company, a subsidiary of Allianz SE, agreed to pay $44 million to settle allegations it violated the False Claims Act by issuing insurance policies that were ineligible under the US Department of Agriculture’s federal crop insurance program and falsifying documents in support of the improper issuances.  DOJ