Randy Constant orchestrated a massive fraud that did “extreme and incalculable damage” to consumers CEDAR RAPIDS: A judge has sentenced the mastermind of the largest known organic food fraud scheme in US history to 10 years in prison, saying he cheated thousands of customers into buying products they didn’t want. US District Judge C.J. Williams said Randy Constant orchestrated a massive fraud that did “extreme and incalculable damage” to consumers and shook public confidence in the nation’s organic food industry. Williams said that between 2010 and 2017, consumers nationwide were fooled into paying extra to buy products ranging from eggs to steak that they believed were better for the environment and their own health. Instead, they unwittingly purchased food that relied on farming practices, including the use of chemical pesticides to grow crops, that they opposed. “Thousands upon thousands of consumers paid for products they did not get and paid for products they did not want,” Williams said. “This has caused incalculable damage to the confidence the American public has in organic products.” Williams said the scam harmed other organic farmers who were playing by the rules but could not compete with the low prices offered by Constant’s Iowa-based grain brokerage, and middlemen who unknowingly bought and marketed tainted organic grain. Williams ordered Constant, a 60-year-old farmer and former school board president from Chillicothe, Missouri, to serve 122 months in federal prison, as his wife and other relatives sobbed. Earlier in the day, Williams gave shorter prison terms to three Nebraska, farmers whom Constant recruited to join the scheme. Williams described the three as largely law-abiding citizens, including one “legitimate war hero,” who succumbed to greed. The farmers grew traditional corn and soybeans, mixed them with a small amount of certified organic grains, and falsely marketed them all as certified organic by the US Department of Agriculture. Most of the grains were sold as animal feed to companies that marketed organic meat and meat products. The farmers reaped more than $120 million in proceeds from sales of the tainted grain. The scheme may have involved up to 7 percent of organic corn grown in the US in 2016 and 8 percent of the organic soybeans, prosecutors said. The US Department of Agriculture’s National Organic Program requires crops to be grown without the use of fertilizers, sewage sludge and other substances. The Cornucopia Institute, an organic industry watchdog group, has been critical of the USDA for being too lenient with producers who flout its standards.