The government wants to take up to 1,300 acres of land and $575,000 from a Central Kentucky farmer if he is convicted in an alleged conspiracy to file false crop insurance claims.
The request is included in an indictment against Earl Lee Planck Jr., of Nicholas County, handed down as part of an investigation of widespread crop insurance fraud in Central Kentucky.
Planck is charged with conspiracy to make false statements in applications and claims for crop insurance; conspiracy to commit wire fraud, mail fraud and money laundering; making false statements; and tax evasion. R. Chad Price and Jesse G. Smith, also of Nicholas County, were indicted with Planck.
The indictment includes a request to take millions in assets if prosecutors can show they were tied to the alleged fraud.
It lists a dozen pieces of property in Nicholas County in Plancks name or the names of a family trust and a business, as well as cash from two accounts and checks signed by his daughter.
With that indictment, handed down Feb. 6, more than a dozen people have been convicted or charged in the insurance-fraud investigation, which surfaced in late 2015 when federal agents searched several places in Mount Sterling.