by Debbie Burke
For farmers, weather makes the difference between payday and bankruptcy.
They are at the mercy of Mother Nature who can wipe out all their hard work in an instant. The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) offers insurance that gives some protection. But unscrupulous, greedy people find ways to take advantage of it.
According to a June 2026 article by Chris Bennett in agweb.com:
“Federal Rainfall Index Annual Forage Insurance Plan…is based on rain amounts—not crop performance. Producers pick a two-month period (they can obtain multiple two-month slots), pay for insurance, and receive payments if precipitation falls below normal historic levels.”
Two Colorado farmers hatched a scheme to cash in on that insurance to the tune of $6.5 million. Ed Dean Jagers and Patrick Esch owned farms in southeast Colorado and southwest Kansas that appeared to never receive rainfall.
Rain gauge plugged with silicon
The reason: in 2016 and 2017, they and two accomplices tampered with weather stations that track data reported to government agencies. The men plugged rain collection funnels with silicon, cut wires, punched holes in gauges, and placed metal disks and cake pans over collection surfaces.
No rain equals payday. They filed multiple fraudulent claims with the government, collecting millions of dollars.
One accomplice, farmhand Mark Fox, was a career criminal and a frequent resident in local jails. Fox decided he wanted a bigger cut of the proceeds. He threatened to blow the whistle on the scheme if Esch didn’t bail him out. Then he demanded hush money. Each time he went to jail (on unrelated charges), the extortion escalated.
Esch gave into the blackmail. On several occasions, he wrote false affidavits saying Fox hadn’t been involved in damaging weather stations and paid cash to Fox’s two girlfriends who facilitated the transactions.
Ed Dean Jagers, Mark Fox, Trey Jagers. Esch not pictured
Public domain photo
Meanwhile, the National Weather Service (NWS) noticed strange anomalies in weather reports from 16 stations in Colorado and Kansas, located on property owned by Jagers and Esch. Additionally, they recorded tremendous increases in vandalism of their measuring equipment, costing thousands of dollars to repair or replace.
NWS investigators zeroed in on Jagers and Esch as the likely perpetrators. Jagers’s son Trey had assisted in the damage. Officials convinced him to wear a wire, hoping to trap the fraudsters, but apparently Trey couldn’t bring himself to be an informant.
Mark Fox was back in jail again. This time he changed his strategy, claiming to Esch that he had immunity from prosecution and could “fix” the problems facing Esch and Jagers…for a price.
In a bizarre twist, Fox broke out of jail and went on the lam, prompting a federal manhunt.
By now, Esch and Jagers knew their scheme was up. They were facing both civil penalties for defrauding the government as well as criminal charges. They negotiated plea deals with short jail sentences and promised to pay back more than $6 million they had received for false claims.
Per Bennett’s article:
“Trey signed a plea agreement in 2022 and served no jail time; Esch and Jagers signed plea agreements in 2023. Esch served two months in prison; Jagers served six months in prison. The pair was ordered to pay a combined $3.1 million in criminal restitution, and settled civil charges for $3.5 million. Total: $6.6 million.”
Fox remained missing.
Then in August, 2023, his badly decomposed body was discovered in a barn but cause of death couldn’t be determined.
This story has a final weird twist. Because of his death, charges against Fox for extortion, assault, and vandalism were dropped.
However, his role as a whistleblower meant his estate received $500,000 from the federal settlement.
Hmmm. Apparently under certain circumstances, crime does pay.
Thank you, Chris Bennett, for permission to quote from your article.
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TKZers, agricultural fraud crimes were new to me until I read Bennett’s article. Were you aware of them? Please share what you know.