BURNS, Ore. (AP) -- A rancher charged with mail fraud and conspiracy is accused of bilking $100 million from thousands of investors in a scheme to sell cattle that investigators say never existed.
Walter J. Hoyt III and four other men were arrested Monday on a federal grand jury indictment.Investigators said the scheme also involved tax deductions for cattle businesses the IRS disallowed, meaning the investors not only lost their savings but also faced tax bills that in some cases left them bankrupt.
The schemes defrauded 4,500 investors in 41 states, the government charged.
The indictments claim Hoyt, who operated several ranches specializing in breeding registered shorthorn cattle, in 1982 began telling people he operated a network of businesses that sold and managed genetically superior female breeding cattle.
The phantom cows were the key to another fraud, the sale of IRA ranch real estate investment partnerships. The government said investors were told the land, used to raise the cattle, was worth $9 million, but it was sold for about $1 million when the Hoyt enterprise went bankrupt in 1995.