Farmers find unique ways to defraud federal insurance plans

A handful of farmers have found creative ways to defraud federal farm programs in recent years. There was the North Carolina couple who faked hail damage to their crops by telling workers to throw ice cubes and scatter mothballs onto a tomato field; the South Dakota couple who fleeced the government by collecting $1 million in wool payments for sheep they didn't own; and the Texas man who spent one year in prison for filing a claim for cotton he never planted. The latest case involves two brothers from North Dakota accused of using various techniques to destroy their potatoes, such as adding septic tank chemicals and bringing in what one witness called a "monster" portable heater to turn their warehouse into a spud sauna. Fraud is one of the biggest issues in the federal farm program and costs taxpayers millions of dollars per year, according to Chad Marzen, a lawyer and Florida State University professor who specializes in insurance law and regulation. Aaron and Derek Johnson are scheduled to be sentenced Monday after a jury convicted them of conspiring to receive illegal payments and giving false statements. Federal prosecutor Nick Chase is asking seven years in prison per brother in the scheme he said cost the U.S. Agriculture Department more than $1 million...more