Rancher jailed for 11 years over claims that he charged companies $244 million to look after cattle that didn't actually exist

• A rancher charged Tyson and another company $244 million to look after cattle that didn't exist.
• He pleaded guilty to the charges last year, which included sending fraudulent invoices.

A rancher has been sentenced to 11 years in prison, following accusations that he charged Tyson Foods and another company $244 million to look after hundreds of thousands of cattle that didn't exist.

The Department of Justice said Cody Easterday, who owned Easterday Ranches in Pasco, Washington, had defrauded the companies for years.

Easterday Ranches had entered agreements in which it would purchase and feed cattle, and the two companies would advance it the costs of those. Easterday would then repay these costs once the cattle were slaughtered and sold, the DOJ said.

Under the agreements with Tyson, first made in 2014, Easterday Ranches billed Tyson twice monthly for the costs associated with growing the cattle to market weight until they were sent for slaughter at Tyson's plant in Pasco, the DOJ said.

In similar agreements with the second company, which the DOJ didn't name, Easterday Ranches agreed to raise the cattle until they were ready for slaughter in exchange for the other company advancing it purchase funds and money to buy feed.

But between 2016 and 2020, Easterday submitted "false and fraudulent invoices" for the purported costs of purchasing and feeding over 265,000 cattle that his ranch didn't purchase and "that did not actually exist," the DOJ said.

This included sending Tyson false invoices in May 2020 seeking payment for $5.3 million for around 6,300 heads of cattle that he'd never bought, the DOJ said.

In total, Tyson paid Easterday Ranches more than $233 million for the "ghost" cattle and the other company paid $11 million.

According to the DOJ, Easterday used the fraud proceeds for his personal use and also for the benefit of his company, including to cover around $200 million in commodity futures contracts trading losses he'd incurred.

Easterday also defrauded CME Group by submitting falsified paperwork, the DOJ said.

Easterday was charged with wire fraud in March 2021 and pleaded guilty later that month, including paying the $244 million back to the companies in restitution.

Chief judge, Stanley Bastian, sentenced Easterday on Tuesday to 11 years in prison and said that the case involved "the biggest theft or fraud I've seen in my career."

The Spokesman-Review quoted his attorney, Carl Oreskovich, as saying that the sentence "took our breath away."

"We were expecting something different," Oreskovich said.

By 2020, Easterday Ranches had more than 22,000 acres of farmland, 150 employees, revenues of more than $250 million, and even a private plane and hangar, according to the US attorney's office for the eastern district of Washington.

Easterday Ranches and another of his companies, Easterday Farms, both went into bankruptcy shortly after the fraud was uncovered. Over the following 18 months, the companies and their assets — including real estate, farm equipment, and aircraft – were liquidated and Tyson and the other company were able to recover around $65 million from the bankruptcy proceedings.