US: Prosecutors eye proceeds from convicted potato growers’ auction

The North Dakota farmers convicted of potato insurance fraud last winter should cough up proceeds from an equipment auction sale last week, a federal prosecutor said. A federal trial jury in December 2014 found brothers Aaron Scott Johnson and Derek Martin Johnson, both originally from Northwood, N.D., guilty on charges of conspiracy to commit fraud involving federal crop insurance and federal crop disaster programs, as well as making false statements to the U.S. Department of Agriculture and to law enforcement. They were sentenced to prison on April 7 and ordered to forfeit $932,776. The brothers are both inmates at the federal prison camp in Duluth, Minn. More