LEXINGTON, Ky. (LEX 18) — A Kentucky farmer has been sentenced to 30 months in federal prison after being convicted for his role in a crop fraud scheme, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of Kentucky.
59-year-old Randall Taulbee, from Carlisle, who was a magistrate in Bourbon County from 2018 to 2023, plead guilty to two counts of conspiring to defraud the United States by committing crop insurance fraud, according to a release from the Office.
The plea agreement states that, “he [Taulbee] produced tobacco and corn that he began to insure through federal crop insurance in 2009 and 2013 respectively.”
The release continues by saying, “Beginning in at least March 2013 and through November 2017, Taulbee admitted to working with his co-defendants, his brother-in-law, James A. McDonald, his sister, Cherie Lynn Noble, and his insurance agent, to falsify crop insurance policies and claims of loss.”
Examples of how Taulbee committed fraud include falsely stating that he was a New Producer, overreporting his acreage, failing to report crop sales on insurance claims of loss and submitting false claims of loss documentation on insurance policies, according to the release.
Taulbee’s co-defendants were also sentenced, with McDonald being sentenced to six months in prison and two years of supervised release and ordered to pay $718.784 in restitution. Noble received probation, community service and was ordered to pay $263.614 in restitution, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Taulbee, in addition to his 30-month prison sentence, will be under the supervision of the U.S. Probation office for three years and is required to pay $718,784 in restitution.
The release adds that federal law requires that Taulbee and his co-defendants must serve 85% of their prison sentences.
