A few days after being accused of mail fraud, the former manager of Lynch Livestock, a pork dealer in Iowa, died in a car accident on Monday.
According to the Iowa State Patrol, 70-year-old Steven Demaray, the company’s regional purchasing manager, died after driving a truck into an overpass supporting terminal near New Hampton, Iowa.
Demaray was the only person on the truck and died in the hospital. An accident report did not explain why the truck deviated from the road and said the road was dry.
On November 4, the grand jury and former Lynch Livestock bookkeeper Billy Joe Wickham were indicted by the grand jury, accusing them of selling pigs to Lynch Livestock in 2016 and 2017, misleading and deceiving farmers.
According to the Associated Press, DeMarre pleaded not guilty when he first appeared in court on November 10 and was released on bail in the crash.
The indictment stated that when Demaray received a fax from the purchasing station detailing the purchase, he would change the weight and quality grade of the pigs. Allegedly, Wickham will then use manual scales to make weighing tickets that match the information fabricated by Demarais.
After changing the information, Lynch Livestock paid farmers significantly less than the value of their livestock, and the US Department of Agriculture imposed a fine of $15,000 on the company in 2017.
Another US Department of Agriculture investigation found that similar practices still existed until December 2020, resulting in Lynch Livestock being ordered to pay a civil fine of US$445,626, including compensation for farmers who misled them.
For more reports from the Associated Press, please see below.
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Lynch Livestock is a licensed livestock dealer that operates sourcing stations in Iowa and several other states, where pig farmers and producers sell their animals.The company is made up of Major donor of the Republican Party And philanthropist Gary Lynch, and then supply pigs to the processing plants of major pork brands across the country.
Lynch sent a note to employees on Monday, saying that he had a “sad heart” to share the news of DeMarre’s death. He wrote: “Our family is going through this difficult time, and our thoughts and prayers are with them.”
The indictment alleges that DeMarre and Wickham made “false and misleading statements” to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s regulatory agencies to cover up fraud and assure livestock sellers that their practices were fair, while destroying the The actual weight of the document.
Lynch Livestock promised at the time to adopt a purely digital scale, replace its software to ensure the correct recording of animal weights and take other corrective measures. Demaray left the company in 2017. Wickham, who is expected to appear in court for the first time next week, was transferred to a different position.
Lynch Livestock said it had fired employees responsible for the latest violations and announced that Dan Sutherland, a pork industry veteran, would become its new CEO, but the federal grand jury soon began hearing testimony about fraud .
Sutherland said in a statement last week that the company was “very disappointed” with the criminal charges brought by federal prosecutors. He stated that the company has cooperated with the U.S. Department of Agriculture regulators and “made appropriate compensation, paid fines and implemented appropriate internal changes.”
