Easterday is set to spend as much as 11 years in prison. 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. But on his way out of town, Easterday steered his Dodge Ram onto a highway off-ramp. Some people play this system quite well. 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. It listed both assets and debts between $100 million and $500 million. Tyson did not respond to DTN's request for comment. Mortgages, bank loans, purchase agreements for vehicles. Its kind of been part of this industry from the beginning and continues to be there, he says. Postal Inspection Service Criminal Investigations Group. Easterday sentencing postponed to January - capitalpress.com This while the consumer price of beef soared higher than ever. And because of their market heft, these corporations increasingly influence how the products are made and the prices paid to ranchers to make them. Bill Gates and Mormon Church to vie for Easterday farmland and 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. By the end of 2020, it was producing 2% of the cattle supplied to Tyson, which is a lot. All told, 230 small businesses were owed money, from small sums to millions. A lock (LockA locked padlock) or https:// means youve safely connected to the .gov website. "They operate paycheck to paycheck. Easterday received reimbursement from the companies for the purported purchase and raising cattle the company never actually bought. On Nov. 30, 2020, Easterday informed the company about the cattle scheme he had been conducting since 2016. Because they were based on false or misleading information, the hedge exemptions were invalid. In a bankruptcy hearing, an attorney for Easterday Ranches acknowledged the shortfall, telling a judge, "The pie is not big enough." Cattle Scammer Easterday Alleges Tyson Committed Antitrust Violations Then he bet again, losing $58 million in 2018. Row crops, plus cherries and grapes. Some ranchers forgo the market altogether now. State troopers had the grim task of contacting his family and puzzling over the scene. Easterday Farms Produce Company was . Fixed: Release in which this issue/RFE has been fixed.The release containing this fix may be available for download as an Early Access Release or a General Availability Release. Down the hill, a row of farm machines lined a field that sloped skyward to meet the blue day. Cody Easterday pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud in March and has agreed to repay $244,031,132 in restitution. By the first week of February, while the Easterdays were likely still mourning the death of Gale Easterday, both the farm and the ranch had filed for bankruptcy, their fates left to a federal court. The longtime family patriarch, Gale Easterday, died in a Dec. 10 head-on crash on Interstate 182 in Pasco. According to court documents, Cody Allen Easterday, 49, of Mesa, used his company, Easterday Ranches Inc., to enter into a series of agreements with Tyson and Company 1 under which Easterday Ranches agreed to purchase and feed cattle on behalf of Tyson and Company 1. Cattle rustling is as old as the West. "He was almost like anxious anxious to do something, get something accomplished. Cody Easterday, Mesa Washington, pleaded guilty in April of last year to defrauding Tyson Foods Inc. and another company out of more than $244 million by charging them for the costs of buying and. Easterday bankruptcy divides millions among dozens. What some - AOL The semi driver could not have avoided it. The USDA had investigated, as had the American Farm Bureau Federation. Easterday Farms contracted hundreds of workers annually. So far, Easterday has paid about $66 million in restitution. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors. Tyson would pay premiums for beef quality, and discounts for deficiencies. He lost another $17 million in 2012. 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 . Workers travel between six and 10 miles in this position every day, paid by how much they pick. Tyson is among these market heavyweights, along with JBS, Cargill and Marfrig. As part of the agreements, Tyson and the unnamed second company would provide funds for Easterday to buy and raise cattle. Scott Williamson supervises investigations of everything from cattle theft to stolen saddles in Texas. Easterday Ranches filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Feb. 1, 2021. The filing was made after a meatpacker sued Easterday Ranches for defrauding it of $225 million for . Bankruptcy Judge Lets Tyson Feed 54,000 Cows Amid Ranch Feud 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. Parker says the cattle couldve been in another state. 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. It's still one of the most shocking stories to come out of eastern Washington, one that still puzzles our community. Easterday carried out one of the largest cattle swindles in U.S. history, from near Pasco, in Washington state. Then he used the cash to pay down his debts and bet some more. 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. A feedlot (another had been sold). The Easterday family, based in Mesa, on Feb. 1 filed bankruptcy papers for Easterday Ranches, listing debts of more than $236 million to its top 20 creditors. Easterday Farms -- started in 1958 by Cody Easterday's grandparents -- also filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection that same week. Paper Rustling: Major Washington Cattle Operator Allegedly 'Fed' 200K 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. More drama for Easterday family after state of Oregon denies opening of Sort of. ", "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. They notethatEasterday Ranches is seekinga draft permitfrom the Oregon Department of Agriculture for a nearly 30,000-cow dairy on the former site of Lost Valley, a dairy shut down by Oregon authorities after more than 200 environmental violations. Easterday alleges that by shutting down its Idaho meatpacking plant in 2006, Tyson "eliminated competition, creating a bottleneck of only one geographically feasible meatpacking plant for cattle feeders and ranchers located in the Pacific Northwest," the lawsuit said. Peel says cattle are sitting ducks. Cody Easterday walks with his wife, Debby, from the Federal Courthouse on South Third Street after being sentenced to 11 years in prison, on Tuesday, October 4, 2022, in Yakima. Hundreds of thousands of them were never real. Some of the fake invoices included pen numbers, the animals' gender, even a financial analysis of their prospects in the market. Easterday estate farm equipment sell-off one of the largest in US history Anna King , September 9, 2021 One of the historically largest farm equipment sales in the country is happening this week in the Northwest. But for Easterday, spectacular failure is what happened next. 2023 DTN, all rights reserved. These relationships always involved an unbalanced power dynamic. He loved his family and farming and never missing an opportunity to hop on a big piece of iron. Cody Easterday. Easterday Dairy moving forward despite company's trouble Arable farm in a secluded location. The original print version of this article was headlined "Betting the Ranch". It won the farm with a bid of $209 million. The CFTC's complaint stated Easterday amassed more than $200 million in losses during a 10-year period, trading cattle futures on both his personal and business accounts. Increased demand. Tyson Fresh Meats sued Easterday Ranches at the end of January, making the allegations. Number 8860726. Easterday, president of Easterday Ranches, pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud and faces up to 20 years in prison when he is sentenced Aug. 4, according to the newspaper. ", "Cattle Scammer: 'Tyson Owes Me Money,'" https://www.dtnpf.com/, Todd Neeley can be reached at todd.neeley@dtn.com. FLCs organize, transport and manage pay for these crews, which in turn supply farms like Easterday with frequent on-demand help doing these most difficult and timely chores. "This is an antitrust and unfair competition case directed at the anti-competitive, unfair, abusive, unjustly discriminatory, and deceptive acts and practices, among others by defendant," Easterday said in the lawsuit. It added up to $233 million in losses for Tyson. They were donors and boosters for Republican candidates and campaigns, gifted livestock to fairs in three counties, and sponsored one of the region's biggest rodeos, the Pendleton Round-Up. Once the cattle were slaughtered and sold at market price, Easterday Ranches would repay the costs advanced (plus interest and certain other costs), retaining as profit the amount by which the sale price exceeded the sum repaid to Tyson and Company 1. 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. Subscribe to receive top agriculture news, Be informed daily with these free e-newsletters. TO UNDERSTAND HOW THE EASTERDAYS unraveled in this system, first you have to know that the system is rigged. The plane used to be owned by Easterday Farms, but now a LLC called Fly Lo out of North Carolina, owns the craft. They talked of his community leadership. 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 . Its likely that Easterday flew down to California in a private jet. Postal Inspection Service for their dedication to investigating this case and tenacity in ferreting out the fraudulent activity to which the defendant has pleaded guilty, said Acting U.S. Attorney Joseph H. Harrington for the Eastern District of Washington. Easterday pleaded guilty March 31 to one count of wire fraud and agreed to repay $244 million in restitution.