Kentucky Adjuster Sentenced in Crop Insurance Fraud Scheme
An independent adjuster who helped Central Kentucky tobacco farmers file millions of dollars in fraudulent crop insurance claims is the latest member of a fraud ring to face prison time for the scheme.
Timothy Douglas Snedegar, 65, of Mount Sterling, Kentucky, was sentenced last week to three years in prison. He must also pay almost $2.3 million in restitution, a federal judge decided, according to local news reports and court records.
Snedegar is one of more than three dozen people, including farmers and insurance agents, who were charged in the scheme that claimed hail damage to tobacco crops in 2012 through 2015, prosecutors said. The adjuster admitted that he used photographs of damage from other fields and took kickbacks from agents, then filed dozens of claims with insurance carriers and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. His plea agreement can be seen here.
Michael NcNew, 51, a former adjuster and insurance agent, was sentenced in September to seven years in prison. The court also has required him to repay several millions of dollars to the Department of Agriculture and to ArmTech Insurance Services.
Roger Wilson, 88, former owner of a tobacco warehouse, also was sentenced to 12 months in prison and must pay restitution, according to news reports. He reportedly purchased low-quality tobacco and let farmers use it when their tobacco was graded, in order to justify an insurance claim, and provided fake sales receipts and shipping reports, prosecutors said.
A farmer, 62-year-old Earl Lee Planck Jr., of Carlisle, in mid-December was sentenced to four years in prison and restitution.
Prosecutors called it a “staggering” amount of fraud.
“This is a crime of greed,” Assistant U.S. Attorneys Kathryn M. Anderson and Erin Roth said in a sentencing memorandum. “Crop insurance fraud in Central Kentucky has been a severe and pervasive scourge on a program designed to benefit the very people who are taking advantage of it, with Planck serving as its most prolific offender.”