Greedy tale out of Candler involving a strawberry farmer who faked crop damage in order to collect on federally-backed crop insurance. U.S. District Court Judge Lacy Thornburg ordered Robert and Vicki Warren to repay $9.15 million to the U.S. Department of Agriculture for insurance payments and forfeit $7.3 million in assets, in addition to sentencing the pair to lengthy jail sentences.
Evidently the Warrens had field workers throw ice cubes on their crops and beat the plants down in an attempt to simulate storm damage. Scary thing is that the scheme worked well enough to suck millions from the system. Makes you wonder just how widespread this sort of thing might be, especially on a smaller scale.