Grand Island Man Sentenced for Fraudulently Obtaining Farm Loans and Bankruptcy Fraud

United States Attorney Susan Lehr announced that Daniel Butt, 39, of Grand Island, Nebraska, was sentenced on July 3, 2024 in federal court in Lincoln, Nebraska for making a false statement on a loan application and bankruptcy fraud. Senior United States District Judge John M. 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 $192,758.61 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. 

This case was investigated by United States Department of Agriculture, Office of Inspector General.

Dax Roberson, Special Agent-in-Charge, U.S. Department of Agriculture-Office of Inspector General said, “I want to thank the U.S. Attorney’s Office, OIG special agents, and our investigative partners for their hard work on this investigation.  When the integrity of the United States Department of Agriculture’s farm loan programs is violated by criminal conduct, the Office of Inspector General will pursue justice to the fullest extent of the law.”