I gotta say, I don't see how this dude ever thought that this would end any other way than the companies realizing that tens of millions of pounds of meat did not exist.
You can only cover that up for so long!
According to court documents, Cody Allen Easterday, 51, of Mesa, used his company, Easterday Ranches Inc., to enter into a series of agreements with Tyson and Company 1 under which Easterday Ranches agreed to purchase and feed cattle on behalf of Tyson and Company 1. Per the agreements, Tyson and Company 1 would advance Easterday Ranches the costs of buying and raising the cattle. Once the cattle were slaughtered and sold at market price, Easterday Ranches would repay the costs advanced โ plus interest and certain other costs โ retaining the difference as profit. ...
Between approximately 2016 and November 2020, Easterday submitted and caused others to submit false and fraudulent invoices and other information to Tyson and Company 1. These false and fraudulent invoices sought and obtained reimbursement from the victim companies for the purported costs of purchasing and raising hundreds of thousands of cattle that neither Easterday nor Easterday Ranches ever purchased, and that did not actually exist.
As a result of the fraud scheme, Tyson and Company 1 paid Easterday Ranches over $244 million for the purported costs of purchasing and feeding over 265,000 ghost cattle...
I mean of course the executives are going to get on the phone after a while and start asking:
![](https://media.notthebee.com/articles/article-633dbe99297bc.gif)
Crime ain't worth it, folks. Make your living like an honest cowboy instead.
![](https://media.notthebee.com/articles/article-633dbfa7cfaf7.gif)
P.S. Now check out our latest video ๐