An Idaho man, Richard Dunham, was hit with a federal prison sentence for cheating his employer, the J.R. Simplot Company, and its former subsidiary out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. The 66-year-old, who once oversaw order-fulfillment for the Jacklin Seed Company, will now spend 12 months and one day behind bars, a U.S. District judge ruled. This was reported by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Oregon.
During Dunham's time supervising Jacklin's Albany, Oregon operations, he carried considerable sway over which grass seed growers could fill the company's orders. As shortages of certain seed varieties bit hard between 2013 and 2015, Dunham, along with Jacklin general manager Christopher Claypool, devised a fraudulent plan to sidestep the issue, a plan they dubbed "getting creative." Growing desperate to maintain company profits and potentially their own career trajectories, they were found instructing employees to swap grass seed varieties unbeknownst to customers and invoice them as if nothing amiss.
Subsequently, the J.R. Simplot Company had to issue over $1.5 million in refunds and credits to the bamboozled buyers. Beyond mislabeling seeds, Dunham was also caught red-handed taking kickbacks from grass seed brokers, racking up illicit payments from various entities. From two such companies, Ground Zero Seeds International and ProSeeds Marketing, Inc., Dunham pocketed a combined total of over $347,000 in illegal kickbacks.
In a statement issued by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Oregon, it was revealed that the deceptions also extended beyond U.S. borders. Cankiwi Ventures, Ltd., managing entity of Moore Seeds based in Debolt, Alberta, Canada, got caught red-handed smuggling mislabeled seeds into the U.S. under false pretenses. The Canadian outfit bowed to a guilty plea this month and was immediately slapped with a $100,000 fine for their transgressions.
The case was cracked wide open by IRS-Criminal Investigation and the U.S. Department of Agriculture Office of Inspector General and saw prosecution by Assistant U.S. Attorney Ryan W. Bounds. While Dunham has received his sentence, and Claypool began his three-year sentence previously, it's a stark reminder that no matter how creative the scheme, the truth tends to take root.
