Judge denies request to vacate sentence of former Kentucky official in crop fraud case

A federal judge has denied a request by a former Kentucky county official to set aside his sentence in case involving crop-insurance fraud.

U.S. District Judge Gregory F. Van Tatenhove issued a ruling Tuesday on the motion by Christopher G. Hickerson.

Hickerson is serving a sentence of five years and also faces an order to pay the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Internal Revenue Service a total of $1,083,650, according to the court record.

Hickerson grew tobacco and other crops in Fleming County and served several terms as a county magistrate as a Democrat, according to the court record and the county clerk’s office.

Hickerson pleaded guilty to one charge of conspiracy to commit fraud in crop insurance and one charge of aiding in filing a false tax return for not including all his income.

Hickerson said in his plea agreement that he used various tactics in filing fraudulent claims for insurance payouts on tobacco crops, including selling tobacco in the names of other people to hide how much leaf he had produced, then filing claims that his crops had been short.

Hickerson also filed a claim for an insurance payout on tobacco using false documents provided through Clay’s Tobacco Warehouse that showed the tobacco was of poor quality.

Debra Muse, who sold crop insurance and also worked at the warehouse, and Roger Wilson, who operated the warehouse, took part in providing the false documentation to Hickerson and other farmers to use in fraudulent insurance claims, according to documents in their cases.

A prosecutor said that Muse “churned out” fake documents and reports used in the scam that caused the government to pay out $5.9 million in payments that farmers didn’t deserve.

She pleaded guilty and was sentenced to five years in prison.

Wilson also pleaded guilty.

Two dozen convicted

Hickerson, Muse and Wilson were among more than two dozen people convicted in an investigation of crop-insurance fraud in Kentucky, including farmers, insurance agents and warehouse employees.

Several more people have been charged in recent weeks and some have already pleaded guilty.

The latest plea came on Monday, when Terry F. Wilson, who grew tobacco in Barren and Metcalfe counties, pleaded guilty in federal court in Lexington to a charge of conspiring to commit crop-insurance fraud.

Wilson admitted getting false documents from Farmers Tobacco Warehouse in Danville showing he had bought tobacco there, which he used to justify insurance claims that his tobacco crops had fallen short of what he needed to fulfill his sales contract.

Wilson agreed to repay $677,679 to the the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which underwrites crop insurance.

Despite pleading guilty, Hickerson, the former Fleming County magistrate, later maintained he was innocent and asked to withdraw his plea, saying he had felt pressured into the deal.

After Van Tatenhove refused that request, Hickerson, who had a new attorney, filed a motion to set aside his sentence.

He argued that prosecutors hadn’t turned over information to him as required, and that his former attorney was ineffective because he hadn’t reviewed all the information the government did turn over just before his trial was scheduled.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Matthew A. Stinnett recommended denying Hickerson’s request.

Stinnett said the government did not violate its duty to turn over information to Hickerson’s attorney.

Much of the information in the documents the government provided just before duplicated information turned over earlier, Stinnett said.

And in some cases, the lawyer representing Hickerson at the time, Michael B. Fox, had compiled more extensive information from witnesses than the statements the government provided, Stinnett said.

Stinnett said that if Fox was hindered from getting through the government’s final batch of documents, it was because of actions by Hickerson.

Stinnett said that the Friday before Hickerson’s trial was scheduled to start on Monday, federal authorities told Fox that Hickerson had made numerous calls to two of his children from the Woodford County Detention Center “directing them to contact certain witnesses for the purpose of coercion and/or intimidation.”

Hickerson was in jail before the trial because his bond had been revoked for violating an order to not contact witnesses.

Fox told Hickerson after learning of the calls that they could no longer rely on his credibility as a witness.

Then the next day, a prosecutor told Fox that Hickerson’s insurance agent, who had been slated to be a key defense witness, had recanted and told federal agents that “she was suspicious of (Hickerson’s) tobacco production and his insurance claims for tobacco losses . . .,” Stinnett recounted in his recommendation.

With Hickerson’s children likely unable to testify because of the calls and the agent no longer a favorable witness, Fox advised Hickerson to plead guilty and Hickerson agreed, according to the court record.

Stinnett said in his recommendation that Fox and his team made every possible effort to defend Hickerson and that Fox “provided Hickerson with excellent representation.”

Van Tatenhove adopted Stinnett’s recommendation to deny Hickerson’s request.

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