Crop Fraud Farmers In Six-Figure Settlement

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. 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.