Julian Rigby, a Bacon County farmer, and Jasper Allen and Benjamin Swain, his sons-in-law, have agreed to pay the federal government $675,000 to settle a suit accusing them of creating false crop insurance claims.
Rigby will pay the most at $350,000, while Allen and Swain will pay $300,000 and $25,000, respectively, to settle their involvement in concealing Rigby’s role in farms they claimed to operate, and in collecting crop insurance for him.
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The case is the first recovery through the US Department of Agriculture’s crop insurance program in the southern district of Georgia under the federal False Claims Act, the US Attorney’s Office said in an article published on Jacksonville.com.
The federal government claimed that the trifecta of Bacon County farmers operated a scheme in which Allen and Swain provided losses claims under the federal crop insurance program. Under the regulations governing the program, only landlords, owner-operators or tenants are qualified for crop insurance coverage and, over two years, the two men are alleged to have fabricated claims in which they stated 100% of the losses.
The complaint states that the two men have no financial risks as Rigby paid them salaries, provided the land and equipment, paid all the workers, provided a barn to cure tobacco, financed all purchases and made all the decisions. In addition, farm expenses of more than $1 million were billed to Rigby or to Alma Bright Leaf in 2008, 2009, and 2010. In addition, it states that Rigby issued many claims and harvested more than $2.9 million in crop insurance payments for 13 years.
The scheme triggered the federal crop insurance program to issue checks ranging from $74,121 to $262,105 to Swain and Allen who allegedly passed the money along to Rigby. The trio were also accused of failing to return some overpayment from the insurance program.
The settlement’s terms have ordered Rigby to pay $25,000 and his company, Alma Brightleaf Blueberry Farms Inc., $125,000 in seven days. Rigby has also agreed to repay the crop insurance program with $40,000 annually for the next five years.
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