September 29, 2000

Risk Management Agency (RMA) Administrator Ken Ackerman says RMA investigators, working with USDA's office of inspector general (OIG) and prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Texas, found evidence that has led to two criminal convictions and the indictment of a third person.

Sylvia Greiner, a crop insurance agent in Red River County, TX, pled guilty before U.S. District Judge Richard Schell to one count of conspiracy to commit crop insurance fraud against the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation (FCIC). The plea included voluntary exclusion from all USDA programs and restitution of $591,816. She will be sentenced Jan. 8.

Her husband, farmer Donnie Greiner, has been indicted by a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Texas with one count of conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government, 14 counts of making false statements to the FCIC, nine counts of making false claims against the FCIC, and three counts of interstate transportation of property obtained by fraud. His arraignment was scheduled for Thursday, Sept. 28.

The third alleged conspirator, farmer John Houchin of McCurtain County, OK, pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit crop insurance fraud against the FCIC. Houchin is paying restitution of $39,680 and began serving four months of home confinement on May 4.