As per the U.S. District Attorney’s Office of Colorado, 2 farmers from southeast Colorado received sentences on Thursday to a total of 8 months in prison for allegedly interfering with and destroying rain gauges in order to defraud government crop insurance programs.
As per to a US Attorney General’s Office spokeswoman, a way that the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) assists ranchers and farmers is by giving federal financing for crop insurance programs which pay compensation when there is fewer rainfall than usual.
Nevertheless, Ed Dean Jagers and Patrick Esch of Springfield, Colorado, were charged with creating a fraud to make it seem as though there was a lower rainfall in their area than there really was, and they subsequently entered a guilty plea.
Prosecutors claimed that between July 2016 and June 2017, Esch and Jagers interfered with and destroyed precipitation gauges in southeast Colorado to “stop those gauges from precisely measuring rainfall” as part of their conspiracy.
Authorities stated in their decision that the National Weather Service (NWS) operated a few of those rain gauges, which were owned by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
In order to keep these gauges from gathering moisture, the accused allegedly loaded them with silicone and topped them with farm equipment. Based on the complaint, they allegedly broke off or cut cables on the gauges before tipping over the bucket that was used to collect precipitation.