Cody Easterday, who perpetrated $244 million 'ghost cattle' fraud All told, 230 small businesses were owed money, from small sums to millions. He faces up to 20 years in prison, and fines. Second company files bankruptcy in missing cattle case This practice is called formula contracting. Williamson says some rustlers start out with a small theft that just keeps growing. TO UNDERSTAND HOW THE EASTERDAYS unraveled in this system, first you have to know that the system is rigged. This type of an event would not have been possible, you know, 30, 40, 50, 60 years ago, Peel says, because there were much smaller feeding companies, feedlots. The old adage is if it doesnt sound right or feel right, its probably not right.. A fter the fraud at Easterday Ranches was discovered, owner Gale Easterday steered his pickup onto the off-ramp of the highway and drove head-on into a semi-truck that was delivering his farm's potatoes. A lock (LockA locked padlock) or https:// means youve safely connected to the .gov website. Easterday pleaded guilty March 31 to one count of wire fraud and agreed to repay $244 million in restitution. These disappearing earnings were captured by the corporations. "This bottleneck, created by defendant, provides Tyson with significant market power, which it wielded in negotiation of pricing and other terms with feedlot operators. Bankruptcy Judge Lets Tyson Feed 54,000 Cows Amid Ranch Feud It listed both assets and debts between $100 million and $500 million. Tyson paid the tab, and Easterday used Tyson's money to pay down his trading debts. We put up cameras, we surveilled the corrals at night, we put out bait cattle, Parker says. Those camps have dormitory housing and limited or no perimeter fencing. LISTEN (Runtime: 1:04) READ A big-time Northwest rancher has snatched himself a last two-week extension of freedom, before he goes into federal prison. PASCO, WA (December 15, 2020) A Kennewick man died Thursday in a wrong-way collision on the 182 Freeway near North 4th Avenue. The trick, Caldero said, is to get up slowly for the first two weeks. According to the Tri-City Herald, the Basin City-based farm has been repeatedly cited for failing to bring nitrate levels in the water under control at the Boardman, Oregon farm . That Western grit and independence? Ranchers have long complained about lowball prices from these companies. According to court documents in the criminal case, beginning in 2016 and continuing through November 2020, Easterday submitted false and fraudulent invoices and other information to Tyson and another company. Several Easterday farms in the Columbia Basin have been sold through bankruptcy court for $209 million to Farmland Reserve Inc., owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This increased price was consistent among the four largest chicken processorsTyson, Pilgrim's Pride, Sanderson and Perduewhich prompted a series of . More choice prime. 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. Easterday now is set to be sentenced Jan. 24 in Richland's Federal Building. The defendant submitted false and fraudulent documentation, and then brazenly used the proceeds to cover his losses and for his personal benefit. Easterday Farms contracted hundreds of workers annually. Grow your production, efficiencies, and profitability. In all the claims add up to $10.76 million and represent the bulk of the debts for the Easterday Farms portion of the lawsuit. He is scheduled to be sentenced on August 4 and faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. In the months after pleading guilty to wire fraud, Easterday raised tens of millions of dollars through asset sales in an attempt to make restitution to Tyson. Copyright 2023. According to the civil complaint, Easterday accumulated more than $200 million in losses over a 10-year period from speculative trading in the cattle futures markets. Some people play this system quite well. The afternoon of Dec. 10 was cloudy but clear, the roads unencumbered. Easterday Farms -- started in 1958 by Cody Easterday's grandparents -- also filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection that same week. The groups want Oregon to deny Easterday's permit and restrict what it calls "mega-dairies. AgriNorthwest is owned by the Mormon Church and operates farms in Benton and Walla Walla counties in southeast Washington. Though the company hired a quarter of Easterday Farms' staff and rebooted many of their family's contracts in the community, the transition to investor ownership could mean fewer donations to the county fairs, local Republican candidates and other causes the Easterdays championed. Tyson accounted for about 80% to 85% of the fed cattle purchased in the Pacific Northwest from 2006 to 2020, the lawsuit said. The Washington times. It worked. It said "according to court records made public Tuesday (2/9), Easterday Farms has and continues to sell feed to the ranch side of the business that has been caught up in an alleged scandal of missing cattle owned by Wallula-based Tyson Fresh Meats Inc., a subsidiary Tyson Foods Inc." The Easterday family. The Fraud Section plays a pivotal role in the Justice Departments fight against white collar crime around the country and is the national leader in prosecuting fraud and manipulation in the U.S. commodity markets. 2023 DTN, all rights reserved. He loved his family and farming and never missing an opportunity to hop on a big piece of iron. Derrell Peel says its rare to see a cattle theft on the scale of what Tyson Fresh Meats is alleging against Easterday $225 million. They also say that Easterday may have had a gambling problem. Easterday Farms had been a part of Washington's Tri-Cities the agricultural trifecta of Richland, Pasco and Kennewick since 1958, back when Ervine Easterday, Gale's father, saw his fortune in the new freshwater from the Grand Coulee Dam and purchased land in the Columbia Basin. He is scheduled to be sentenced on August 4 and faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. "Rather, Tyson required cattle feeders to carry all the financial risk in feeding and caring for cattle until they reached market weight under their 'pioneer model' contracting arrangement.
Gale and Karen Easterday are the sole owners of Easterday Farms, with their five children working on the operation. But he's now scheduled to be sentenced on June 13 his third continuance granted by federal courts. The next generation of Easterdays who might have otherwise inherited what he lost the grandsons who spent their youth riding shotgun in Gale's pickup now farm farther from the Tri-Cities. By the end of 2020, it was producing 2% of the cattle supplied to Tyson, which is a lot. Never fast. Over the following year and a half, Easterday's companies and their assets, including large amounts of real . Cody Allen Easterday is serving an 11-year prison sentence in Los Angeles on wire fraud, after pleading guilty to conducting a $233 million ghost-cattle scheme that included allegedly raising cattle for Tyson and billing the company for cattle that did not exist. ANALYSIS: Mayoral challenger Lisa Brown says Spokane is 'stuck in neutral.' Easterday also has a second lawsuit pending in the same court. But todays operations have grown much larger and more corporate. Anyone who engages in these fraudulent and deceptive activities will be brought to justice.. 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. And that to be a rancher is to be a gambler at least in a business sense because the market for beef is more about enriching corporations than paying ranchers a fair share. That circumstance requires ranchers to shoulder tremendous financial risks. Bill Gates and Mormon Church to vie for Easterday farmland and Shortly after Easterday's massive fraud was uncovered, Easterday Ranches and another of his companies, Easterday Farms, Inc., went into bankruptcy in the matter In re Easterday Ranches, Inc. et al., No. MESA, Wash. A Washington man pleaded guilty on Wednesday, March 31, to defrauding businesses out of more than $244 million by charging them under various agreements for the . Tyson Alleges Easterday Conducted A "Fire Sale" - Drovers The scandal arose due to the price of processed chicken continuing to rise despite decreases in costs such as feed. It's still one of the most shocking stories to come out of eastern Washington, one that still puzzles our community. The Easterday companies were founded by Ervin Easterday and his son Gale as a 200-acre farm that eventually grew into a large diversified farming operation. Four generations in, the Easterdays were a powerhouse of ranching and farming. Eastern Washington rancher sentenced for 'ghost cattle' fraud Cody Easterday was sentenced to 11 years in prison for what U.S. District Court Judge Stanley Bastian called "the biggest theft or. The two Franklin County-based family-owned businesses Easterday Ranches and Easterday Farms filed separately in February for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission's action, filed March 31 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Washington, further accuses Easterday of making false statements to an exchange, and violating exchange-set position limits. In the interim, because the coronavirus had bottlenecked beef processing and prices for consumers had spiked, pay for ranchers had fallen to an historic low of 31.1% before rebounding to 35.8% by June. It was that agreement to expand his operations, the lawsuit said, that was the beginning of a downfall in the relationship. Secure .gov websites use HTTPS Gale's son tried to outplay this system and lost. Easterday bankruptcy divides millions among dozens. What some - AOL Existing farm buildings partly oriented . Conjecture in the metal shops and on ranches ran the gamut from illness to injury to suicide. "For years, Cody Easterday perpetrated a fraud scheme on a massive scale, increasing the cost of producing food for American families," Acting Assistant Attorney General Nicholas L. McQuaid said in a news release. Easterday carried out one of the largest cattle swindles in U.S. history, from near Pasco, in Washington state. Easterday was sentenced Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Yakima to 11 years in prison. The ranch was mammoth by Northwest standards. 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. The complaint alleges that, from at least October 2016 to November 2020, Easterday Ranches submittedfalse invoices and reimbursement requests relating to more than 200,000 head of cattle that the Central Washington farmnever actually purchased or raised on the producers behalf. The bankruptcy court opted not to split the four generations of sprawling business. It added up to $233 million in losses for Tyson. More drama for Easterday family after state of Oregon denies opening of But last spring, cattle moved in droves to large feedlots in places like Nebraska, Kansas and Texas where grass was abundant. And another $30,249.72 in cash was spent for things like trips to Costco and plants. Easterday alleges Tyson has "misused its economic power over cattle feeders and contracts," in violating the Packers and Stockyards Act of 1921, the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, and the Washington State Consumer Protection Act. He also was ordered to pay the full restitution of $244. Easterday swindled Tyson Fresh Meats and another company out of 265,000 cattle for nearly a quarter of a billion dollars by inventing a ghost herd. Elyria Chronicle Telegram Archives, Jan 24, 1936, p. 20 In addition to employing workers who depended on the farm and ranch, the Easterdays had hundreds of accounts around town. More time: Judge postpones Easterday sentencing another six months Rowan says the incentives in the formula contracts the premiums paid for higher quality combine with this trading to drive better beef cuts and grades. Eastern Washington ranching mogul Cody Easterday wagered - Inlander In 2009, Tyson and Easterday discussed the possibility of increasing capacity at his feedlots. Cody Easterday, 51, pleaded guilty last year in a so-called "ghost cattle" scam that federal prosecutors called "one of the largest thefts in Washington history." The head of a massive Central . Farmland Reserve Inc., owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, bought several Easterday farms in Benton County in July for $209 million. Postal Inspection Service are investigating the case. New Podcast Follows Downfall of Tri-Cities Cattle Farming Empire But at the end of the day, it is bought, packaged and shipped by the same few actors. Coronavirus slowdowns at meatpackers surely accounted for some of the loss cattle were hard to sell in 2020 while plants sputtered, labor was scarce and the supply chain shifted from restaurants to grocery stores. State troopers had the grim task of contacting his family and puzzling over the scene. Cattle are also really hard to track: brands burned into their side can be rebranded, and ear tags can be removed. Easterday also was required to assume "all of the financial risk" of operation. Please correct the following errors and try again: We've detected that you are using an unsupported browser. Afterward, along with heartbreak, there was bewilderment and disbelief. ", "Cattle Scammer: 'Tyson Owes Me Money,'" https://www.dtnpf.com/, Todd Neeley can be reached at todd.neeley@dtn.com. Onion and potato storages, other buildings, too. Back in April, Mesa, Washington, rancher Easterday pleaded guilty to wire fraud for defrauding Tyson Foods and another unnamed company $244 million in costs for buying and feeding hundreds of thousands of cattle that didn't exist. Our Story | Easterday Farms Farmland Reserve is operated by the Mormon Church. Easterday Farms has now grown to more than 18,000 acres of potatoes, onions, corn and wheat. By the time Tyson began to suspect the fraud, in November 2020, Easterday had lost more than $200 million in the futures market. In June, while the Biden administration was talking of breaking up the corporate meat oligopoly, bidders for Easterday Farms and Ranches were few. zach grenier lynn bailey - tidningen.svenskkirurgi.se From steer wrestling to barrel races, they were fixtures in arena box seats and in the community, too. As part of the agreements, Tyson and the unnamed second company would provide funds for Easterday to buy and raise cattle. Easterday pleads guilty to $244 million ghost-cattle scam With the help of a stockbroker, ranchers can carefully wager against their cattle to make a little extra profit, just in case the market price doesn't go their way. This is how it works: Ranchers with more than 50,000 pounds of living, breathing, snorting mammal can go to the Chicago Mercantile Exchange the agrarian equivalent of the New York Stock Exchange and buy what's called a futures contract.