Every body’s doing it… Doesn’t make it right
It is good to see the government in action and stopping excesses, a fresh prospective if you will, following the ugly election cycle we are just exiting. These are summaries of ethical and legal issues that member of the Ag community who work for the Federal government have been caught in recent years from the Pentagon’s Encyclopedia of Ethical Failures. Yes, that is a real document handled by the Department of Defense’s Standards and Conduct Office.
Agriculture Employee Sought for Approving Fraudulent Loans
A former employee of the Department of Agriculture is wanted for recruiting his friends to fraudulently apply for farm loans and then giving him money in exchange for approving the loans. The former employee helped his non-farmer co-conspirators to fill out the required forms with the information required for approval. Under this scheme, the former employee approved loans totaling $1.8 million. He collected $340,000 for himself. The former employee has been charged with 98 counts including 56 for bribery. Federal sentencing patterns suggest that he is facing a long time in the federal criminal system. The loan applicants also likely face a dim, non farming future.
Seven Agriculture Inspectors Sentenced for Bribery Scheme
Seven U.S. Department of Agriculture fruit and vegetable inspectors were convicted of operating a scheme in which they received cash payments from fruit and vegetable wholesalers in return for the inspectors assigning lower grades to their produce. The lower grade meant that the wholesaler could pay the grower a lower price for the produce and then re-sell it at the higher grade.
All pled guilty to one count of bribery each. Bribery occurs when a public official seeks or accepts anything of value (such as cash) in return for being influenced in the performance of an official act (such as assigning produce grades).