SPUDSCAM

FARGO, N.D. (AP) – Prosecutors say one of two North Dakota brothers accused of scamming the government out of $2 million in crop insurance payments orchestrated a similar scheme nearly 20 years ago – but only pocketed about $33,000.
 
     Fifty-year-old Aaron Johnson and 47-year-old Derek Johnson are accused of conspiring to receive illegal payments by intentionally destroying potatoes. They have pleaded not guilty.
 
     Aaron Johnson pleaded guilty in a similar case in 1995. Court documents filed Friday say he falsely claimed he and his brother produced about 9,500 hundredweight of potatoes, when it was actually more than 76,000 hundredweight.
 
     Prosecutors said Aaron Johnson obtained a book of blank scale tickets from the Northwood Elevator, falsified 21 scale tickets and submitted them to the government.
 
     A federal public defender was not immediately available for comment.

 

Previously…

FARGO, N.D. (AP) – Federal authorities have expanded the scope of their investigation into two brothers from North Dakota accused of intentionally destroying potatoes to collect crop insurance payments.

The original indictment alleged that 50-year-old Aaron Johnson and 47-year-old Derek Johnson conspired to receive more than $800,000 in illegal payments dating back to 2006. Now the government says the potato farmers from the Cooperstown area pocketed more than $2 million in a scam that began in 2002.

The updated indictment accuses the brothers of adding chemicals to the potato seeds so they would not grow and purposely damaging the plants with cultivators.

The Johnsons have pleaded not guilty to conspiracy and making false statements. A spokesman for the federal public defender’s office says it’s a complex case and lawyers are still reviewing the evidence.