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.Cody Easterday, who owned Easterday Ranches in Pasco, Washington, had defrauded the companies for years.
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. 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.