Cattle Raisers inspectors investigate $4 million fraud

FORT WORTH, Texas, October 21, 2005―Inspectors with Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association have uncovered evidence in a $4 million cattle fraud involving producers in four states.
            Monte J. Sharp, 45, of Hopeton, Okla., has been arrested on a Fugitive from Justice Warrant from Williamson County, Texas, where he has been charged with felony theft of 1,061 head of cattle from Capitol Land and Cattle Co. in Schwertner, Texas.
            The cattle, valued at nearly $700,000, were placed with Sharp for preconditioning at his lot near Alva, Okla. Preconditioning is a vaccination, nutrition and management program designed to prepare young cattle to withstand the stress associated with weaning and shipment to a feedlot.
            Sharp then illegally financed the cattle through Brookover Feed Yards in Garden City, Kan. He received a loan for 75 percent of their market value, secured by the future sale after they had been “finished” or fed up to market weight.
            “Basically, he was financing cattle that didn’t belong to him,” explained TSCRA Inspector Chad Barfknecht.
           Sharp did this repeatedly, with victims as far away as North Carolina. “We have information that he has placed over 20,000 head of cattle in feedlots in Kansas and Oklahoma,” Barfknecht added.
           Owners of Forester Cattle Co. in Larue, Texas, claim Sharp sold 98 of their cattle, valued at $60,000. In Kentucky, he is charged with illegally financing 88 heifers worth about $59,000.
           “We’ll probably continue to discover new victims for several months,” said TSCRA Inspector Ben Eggleston. “Fact is, we still don’t know how big this thing will end up being.”
            Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association is a 128-year-old trade organization whose 13,000-plus members manage approximately 5.4 million cattle on 70.3 million acres of range and pasture land, primarily in Texas and Oklahoma.

TSCRA-33-2005