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Who needs “Yellowstone” with all its cowboy intrigue when you’ve got a real-life tale straight out of the Wild West, brimming with drama and unexpected twists that’ll keep you hooked? Time to grab your popcorn, pull up a chair, and settle in for the saga of a band of Colorado ranchers. These folks cooked up a daring scheme to fiddle with the weather, aiming to rustle up extra federal drought relief dollars. But this plan didn’t just backfire—it led to a showdown that left one cowboy biting the dust.
The story goes that these ranchers tampered with NOAA weather instruments to reduce reported rainfall in order to collect more federal drought relief money. It was a pretty nifty scam, but it didn’t work out; they got caught, and that’s when things really took a strange and deadly turn. Two of the ranchers from this wild tale, who worked out a plea deal, have just faced the music and been sentenced. Their stints in the slammer might be brief, but the real rodeo is figuring out how to cough up the $6 million they owe to the US government.
Patrick Esch, 72, and Ed Dean Jagers, 62, both of Springfield, received short prison sentences – Esch two months and Jagers six. They also were ordered to pay a combined $3.1 million in restitution – the estimated amount of fraudulently inflated funds they received from the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation. As well, they agreed to pay a combined $3.5 million to settle the allegations.
The cases against Esch and Jager included civil allegations and criminal charges accusing the men of making false statements and defrauding the federal government, in addition to the physical tampering of the rain gauges.
This wasn’t a sophisticated scheme by any stretch of the imagination; they were drilling holes and using pie and cake plates to block the flow of water. The CBS piece continues:
The group allegedly damaged rain gauges located in Springfield, Ordway, La Junta, Walsh, and Ellicott, Colorado, and others in Syracuse, Coolidge, and Elkhart, Kansas. Wires were cut, funnels to rain collectors were filled with silicone, holes drilled or punched in collectors, parts of collectors were disassembled, and objects such as cake pans or pie tins were placed over the gauges during rainstorms. The incidents occurred between July 2016 and June 2017.
Incidentally, one of the co-conspirators turned on the group and extorted Esch in particular. The unidentified male threatened to expose the entire enterprise to authorities in exchange for Esch paying the man’s bond for release from jail and giving several five-figure payments to the man’s girlfriend. Esch, according to his plea agreement, even shrugged off the man’s admitted theft of an all-terrain vehicle from Esch in exchange for the man’s silence.
In August of 2023, a month before Jager and Esch reached their plea agreements with prosecutors, this unidentified male co-conspirator escaped from prison. This triggered a nationwide manhunt and caused Esch and his family “to go into hiding,” as stated in a court document. Two weeks after the escape, the co-conspirator was found dead.
As we said, with elements such as prison breaks, death, extortion, bribery, scheming, and theft, who even needs “Yellowstone”? But beyond the riveting drama, there’s a clear lesson here: government incentives steer the ship in this country, and they have so many loopholes and varying ways to game the system. It’s high time our government was corralled. If we don’t tighten the reins soon, we’re headed for a real tumbleweed of trouble.
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