Kentucky farmer sentenced for $1.9M crop fraud, others await sentencing
A Kentucky farmer who lied about crop losses to get insurance payouts was sentenced to serve four years in federal prison and pay almost $2 million in restitution.
David Wisdom, 69, was sentenced to four years in prison Monday on a charge of conspiracy to defraud the United States.
According to federal prosecutors, Wisdom stole $1,941,007 in crop insurance indemnity payments over a span of four years.
Wisdom was considered an organizer or leader in the activity, which included several others who are actively being prosecuted by the government.
He pleaded guilty on Feb. 28.
Wisdom, of Barren County, owned and rented farmland in Barren and Metcalfe counties and grew crops, including tobacco, according to his plea agreement.
Wisdom admitted that over several crop years, he wrote checks showing he bought tobacco from Farmers Tobacco Warehouse, creating the impression his crops had been short, and he needed to buy tobacco to fulfill his contract.
Thomas Kirkpatrick, the former manager of the warehouse, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering in July. Kirkpatrick is on the hook for nearly $16 million and could receive a 20-year sentence.
Wisdom used the checks to support claims for insurance payments by making it appear he had grown less tobacco than he actually had.
In reality, the warehouse paid him back for those checks, though it kept a cut in some cases, according to his plea agreement.
Wisdom also wrote checks to other farmers from 2015 through 2020 to make it appear he had bought tobacco from them, according to the plea.
In one example cited in the indictment, Kirkpatrick allegedly received five checks totaling $763,434 from a farmer named Larry Walden in February 2020, as evidence that Walden had bought 479,704 pounds of tobacco from the warehouse.
Walden pleaded guilty to one charge of conspiracy to commit money laundering in May and was ordered to pay $9.9 million in restitution. He faces 20 years in prison.
Prosecutors said in a sentencing memorandum that Wisdom grew up in a stable household, strong family support and no mental or physical abuse. Because of this, federal attorney said only “greed and the ease of obtaining unearned income as the principal motivators.”
