A Kentucky farmer is awaiting sentencing after pleading responsible to defrauding the federal crop insurance coverage program of virtually $1.5 million.
Robert Thomas Hunt, of Taylor County in central Kentucky, requested grain haulers to promote his soybean, corn and wheat beneath his youngsters’s names, to make it seem like his crop yields had fallen sharply from 2015 to 2021, in keeping with his March 27 plea agreement.
For these seven years, Hunt claimed heavy losses on his multi-peril crop insurance coverage coverage, together with a excessive of $322,000 in 2015. The crop insurance coverage program paid a complete of $1.49 million, the courtroom paperwork present. All of the whereas, his farm bought loads of produce however disguised the gross sales by way of the usage of relations’ names.
“Hunt knew none of those people had an insurable curiosity within the crops bought of their names and deliberately withheld these gross sales from the crop loss adjuster,” the plea settlement explains. “This obscured Hunt’s true manufacturing and resulted in inflated insurance coverage losses.”
Hunt additionally used totally different addresses for his youngsters to additional conceal his precise grain gross sales.
He now faces as much as 30 years in jail, forfeiture of his property, restitution to the insurance coverage program, and a most nice of $1 million.
That is the newest responsible plea in a number of federal investigations into crop insurance coverage fraud in Kentucky. One of many largest crimes concerned a tobacco farmer, who pleaded guilty final yr to greater than $9 million in crop insurance coverage fraud. Since 2017, authorities have charged greater than 30 folks within the state with crop insurance coverage fraud, the Lexington Herald-Chief reported.
Subjects
Fraud
Agribusiness
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