One major cattle-feeding facility is called the "North Lot" located in Franklin County. In June, while the Biden administration was talking of breaking up the corporate meat oligopoly, bidders for Easterday Farms and Ranches were few. And that case, like others nowadays, happened on paper, not on the range. On several occasions, according to the CFTC complaint, Easterday carried positions in live cattle futures that exceeded CME exchange-set position limits and "materially overstated" cattle inventory, purchases and sales. Easterday Farms, Owner of Mega-Dairy Site, Files for Bankruptcy To meet margin calls, Easterday devised a scheme to defraud one of his biggest business partners, a South Dakota-based beef producer, federal officials say. And it is not always a ruinous position to be in. Another truck had broadsided the semi on its course across the asphalt, and he had scarcely avoided driving over the top of it. They know its wrong and what theyre doing is wrong, Williamson says. The groups want Oregon to deny Easterday's permit and restrict what it calls "mega-dairies. Grow your production, efficiencies, and profitability. Easterday then admitted last fall that he had caused Easterday Ranches to submit invoices for cattle that never existed to cover millions of dollars in those trading losses. "You've always got Tyson and all those big plants saying, 'You guys have got to get your costs down.' Nationwide, data from the United States Department of Agriculture shows they have reason to. It worked. "It's very uncomfortable." Tax-paying arm of LDS church wins auction for Easterday farmlands Farmland Reserve Inc., a Utah-based nonprofit related to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was the winning bidder at a June 17 bankruptcy auction for the 22,500-acre collection of Benton County farms owned by Easterday Ranches Inc. and Easterday Farms. "This bottleneck, created by defendant, provides Tyson with significant market power, which it wielded in negotiation of pricing and other terms with feedlot operators. The Washington times. By all outward appearances in the fall of 2020, the Easterdays looked better than good. Tyson's packing plant in Pasco, Washington, is one of just two such companies within a 200-mile radius of where Easterday Ranches operated, according to the lawsuit. Still others are hardened criminals. Tyson passed on providing an interview or any comment on Easterdays incarceration. ceres imagaging lindsay irrigation partner, Feds charge Easterday in phantom cattle fraud scheme. Our independent, nonprofit newsroom produces award-winning stories, podcasts and events. According to Parker, there were a dozen theft cases in 2020 just in California, amounting to about $174,000 worth of total losses for cattle operators. 2023 DTN, all rights reserved. The Seattle Times reported last month that an audit done by the Washington State Department of Agriculture of brand inspection records found no discrepancies. In a motion to appoint a trustee in the cases, Tyson said it learned Easterday sold one of its feedlots for $16 million just one week before filing for bankruptcy. There were no tire marks where he might have braked, no sign that he had attempted to avoid the crash. Even as the government comes for the rest of what is his through bankruptcy court, Cody Easterday's still a fixture in the box seats at the rodeo. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Office of Inspector General and the U.S. In 2016, he lost another $6 million. I commend the agents with the Federal Deposit Insurance Company Office of the Inspector General and the U.S. They are quick to note that this is fraud, that it was illegal, that it is very far afield of the normal business dealings of a ranch. When he entered into his most recent contract with Tyson in 2014, the corporation offered him a deal that's increasingly common: Tyson agreed to front Easterday the cash to buy weaned calves and to feed them, and to buy the cattle back from Easterday at market rates when they were grown. This practice is called formula contracting. When Easterday filed for bankruptcy, it owed $47,000 and $454,000, respectively, to two farm labor contractors who supplied such workers. And we're sitting here going, 'We can't pencil that, that doesn't work.'". Please correct the following errors and try again: We've detected that you are using an unsupported browser. Easterday allegedly defrauded Tyson out of $233 million He is scheduled to be sentenced on August 4 and faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. Then he bet again, losing $58 million in 2018. Easterday was in Idaho on vacation, visiting his daughter for the birth of a grandchild with permission from a federal judge. Farm Reserve Inc. is the investment arm of AgriNorthwest. The groups want Oregon to deny Easterday's permit and restrict what it calls "mega-dairies. All were at the back of the line by bankruptcy standards, outranked by creditors like Washington Trust Bank, Rabo AgriFinance and John Deere Financial, which brought their own litigation, anxious to be paid for loans. Easterday Ranches is accused of bilking Tyson Foods out of more than $225 million by charging for 200,000 cattle that never existed. It's still one of the most shocking stories to come out of eastern Washington, one that still puzzles our community. In those corrugated metal shops where Gale Easterday spent his last day running errands, he was on a first-name basis with the owners of the local enterprises there. Cody Easterday, 51, of Mesa, Washington, was sentenced Tuesday in federal court in Yakima, Washington, for what U.S. District Court Judge Stanley Bastian called "the biggest theft or fraud I've. Monopsony is a market situation in which there is only one buyer. He also was ordered to pay the full restitution of $244. After four generations of success, his credit Cody's credit, too it was their name. And mrs. Earl easterday Soldier there and settees j Dusty. Nothing illegal. And that case, like others nowadays, happened on paper, not on the range. But to do it well is to treat it more like buying insurance than like a night at the poker table. Then he used the cash to pay down his debts and bet some more. He got a second hall pass from a federal judge to visit the new grandbaby in Idaho. If the price was bad, he was stuck for the loss. All other trademarks are the properties of their respective owners. He stood to demonstrate, hinging himself at the hips, bending forward to grab a plastic water bottle on the floor by its base. And ranchers need two things: One is an awful lot of cattle, and the other is a stockbroker. He ascended the exit ramp, past signs that warned "wrong way," and rounded the bend onto the interstate, colliding with a vehicle driven by his own delivery man. More drama for Easterday family after state of Oregon denies opening of In addition, Easterday Ranches reportedfalse or misleading information concerning its cattle inventory, purchases, and sales to the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in at least two hedge exemption applications seeking permission to exceed the exchanges position limits, federal officals say. BEFORE THE MATTER OF THE NONEXISTENT CATTLE, Easterday was a name of distinction. Usual earnings are around $300 a day. Arable farm in a secluded location. When they recruited Gamino, for example, the Easterdays doubled his salary and afterward advanced him $6,000 to buy the land on which he made his home. "What I liked about him was that if anybody wanted to talk to him he would make time for us," Gamino said. Farm Progress Show annually hosts more than 600 exhibitors displaying new farm equipment, tractors, combines and farm implements; seed and crop protection products; and many additional farm supplies and services. The meat inside might come from different farms, be raised in different ways, or vary in quality. But Easterday quickly lost another $18 million. For years, Cody Easterday perpetrated a fraud scheme on a massive scale, increasing the cost of producing food for American families, said Acting Assistant Attorney General Nicholas L. McQuaid of the Justice Departments Criminal Division. The USDA had investigated, as had the American Farm Bureau Federation. Chad Parker, based in California, runs the Western States Livestock Rule Enforcement Association, a national industry group that fights cattle rustling. And a recent $225 million alleged cattle heist involving Easterday Ranches and Tyson Fresh Meats in Washington is one of the largest cases in U.S. history. He also was ordered to pay the full restitution of $244. Please correct the following errors and try again: We've detected that you are using an unsupported browser. Spokespeople for both companies declined to be interviewed, but Erik Nicholson, the former vice president of United Farm Workers, who is now a consultant, said the outstanding sums would be painful blows for both. Farmland Reserve is operated by the Mormon Church. Subscribe to receive top agriculture news, Be informed daily with these free e-newsletters. The following year, another $10 million, then another $20 million. Williamson says for most of the thieves he catches, its not their first time its just the first time they got caught. Still, few small business owners wanted to talk about the money Easterday owed them. The civil action comes as the 49-year-old Easterday pleaded guilty March 31in federal court of defrauding Tysonof more than $244 million in what prosecutors say was a scheme to cover his company's losses in commodities trading, has arguedthe lawsuit shows there is more than one "bad actor"among the state's largest dairies. The defendant submitted false and fraudulent documentation, and then brazenly used the proceeds to cover his losses and for his personal benefit. Secure .gov websites use HTTPS "Once Mr. Easterday and Easterday Ranches entered into the construction loan, Mr. Easterday had no practical choice but to complete the project in order to preserve his other business interests," the lawsuit said. While small pieces might have stayed in the hands of other smaller operators, the court reasoned it could capture more money for debts more quickly in one whopping sale. 8-32 characters, include one number (0-9) and one letter (a-z), By clicking Create Account, you agree to our, Save DTNPF to your home screen: Tap on the arrow and then select, Oil Futures Reverse Higher After US Rig Count Falls, Pressure to Stop Importing Brazilian Beef After Mad Cow Case Confirmed, Kellogg, Meijer Partner to Support Young Midwest Farmers, Increase yields and savings with precision weather. Easterday alleges it was his understanding Tyson owned the cattle as part of an agreement. "The way you're positioned, after 10 a.m., it's very hot," he said. The camps are work and program-oriented. Tyson Alleges Easterday Conducted A "Fire Sale" - Drovers "You've always got Tyson and all those big plants saying, 'You guys have got to get your costs down.' Join the community! The criminal case and connected Chapter 11 bankruptcy of Easterday Ranches Inc. and Easterday Farms could lead to the liquidation of an extensive family farm operation in eastern Washington involved in cattle feeding, as well as having 22,500 acres of potatoes, onions, corn and wheat in the Columbia Basin. In recent testimony to Congress about Western drought, which was so severe in 2021 that irrigation water was scarce, several ranchers described selling off herds at significant losses, unable to buy hay while grass wouldn't grow and profits were too slim to afford it. Officers who questioned the driver found him badly shaken. TO UNDERSTAND HOW THE EASTERDAYS unraveled in this system, first you have to know that the system is rigged. On Friday, a showdown between two of the largest agricultural landowners in the United Statesthe Church of Latter-Day Saints and Bill Gates ' wealth management firmcame to a head when the . It happened very fast. This site is operated by a business or businesses owned by Informa PLC and all copyright resides with them. It was that agreement to expand his operations, the lawsuit said, that was the beginning of a downfall in the relationship. From steer wrestling to barrel races, they were fixtures in arena box seats and in the community, too. Both Cody and Gale treated their staff like equals and looked after them like they looked after their own. According to Tyson's recently filed 8-K form, this supplier represents roughly 2 percent of the total cattle supplied to Tyson's beef segment for fiscal 2017 through 2020. All of that might be true. There were no cattle inside the hundreds of pens, just a flat expanse of soil and an eerie quiet in this place where millions of cattle once lived, and hundreds of thousands of invented ones never did. The farm, at a sweeping 18,000 acres, was 60 times its original size, dominated by the potatoes and onions. One particularly eye-catching invoice charged $5.3 million for eight lots of cattle that couldn't be found anywhere other than on paper. Easterday alleges in a lawsuit filed this week in the U.S. District Court for the District of Eastern Washington, that Tyson took advantage of Easterday Ranches' limitations as to where the company could sell its cattle. But a longstanding problem was also threatening the businesses: For years, Cody Easterday had been piling up staggering debts gambling on the future price of beef. In a separate filing, Easterday Farms . All told, 230 small businesses were owed money, from small sums to millions. ", "It's been clear for years now that these facilities housing tens of thousands of cows and producing waste on par with many cities are mega-polluters regardless of the operators," the groups said in a statement earlier this year.
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