Covid Fraud in ag

Covid Fraud in ag

David Sparks Ph.D.
David Sparks Ph.D.
US Attorney Josh Hurwit heads up the Idaho COVID 19 Fraud Task Force that pursues and prosecutes people who make agricultural claims the are fraudulent. I asked him for an example. Speaker1: We had one case. The defendant claimed that he was an onion farmer based on what he claimed was £22 million of onions. That was a loss during the pandemic. He received $250,000. There's no evidence at all that he ever was an onion farmer or had that amount of onions. So we were able to seek and get a default judgment for three times that amount that he claimed. So 750,000 total. Wow. If he can't come up with the money, is there some other punishment? We have a collections team that's going to make sure that the extent he can pay any of that money that he does. My experience with the farming and ranching community is they're pretty upstanding folks. So to impugn their credibility is particularly heinous in my mind. I totally agree with you that it's an upstanding segment of our community, of our state, really important to our state and the vast majority, 99% of the farmers and ranchers are honest folks that do things the right way. Many of them applied for this support from the government during the pandemic and did so honorably and honestly and received money that they were entitled to. What bothers us is when people lie and defraud the government to get those funds that they're not entitled to because that hurts the entire farming and ranching community. And it doesn't just bother prosecutors. It bothers all of us.
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