Lincoln, Neb. — Daniel Butt, 39, of Grand Island was sentenced on Wednesday, July 3 in federal court in Lincoln for making a false statement on a loan application and bankruptcy fraud. U.S. District Judge John Gerrard sentenced Butt to five years of probation. Butt will also have to serve eight weekends in jail. Butt has also been ordered to pay nearly $193,000 in restitution to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Farm Service Agency.
Between 2016 and 2018, Daniel Butt obtained two loans from the Farm Services Agency (FSA), part of the United States Department of Agriculture. To obtain the loans, he lied about owning cattle as collateral, and he agreed to use the loan for farming expenses. The matter came to the attention of law enforcement when, during bankruptcy proceedings, Butt denied ever having owned cattle.
Investigators learned that Butt had multiple financial accounts. He had been spending the loan money on other farming-related debts, car payments, personal expenses, and ATM withdrawals. Butt wrote bad checks to the FSA and he never paid FSA all of the money he earned from farming as was required by the terms of the loan. He avoided repayment obligations by selling grain in his father’s and brother’s names, then lied to the creditors under oath in bankruptcy court when he denied having done this. He borrowed from many individuals but failed to pay them back. When he filed for bankruptcy, he tried to get the outstanding loan debt to the Department of Agriculture discharged.
Investigation of the case was conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Office of Inspector General.
