KDSN RADIO News
Iowa farmer sentenced to 15 years for stealing cattle, COVID benefits
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A northeast Iowa farmer has been sentenced to over 15 years in federal prison for stealing over $5 million worth of livestock and federal pandemic assistance.
Prosecutors say 54-year-old Michael Butikofer of Monona, in Clayton County, had a large operation raising cattle for investors across the U.S. and he recruited employees from South Africa who were forced to live on the farm without access to clean water or even furniture. According to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Butikofer convinced eight investors to let him sell their cattle in his name and he took over $2.5 million of the profits “for his own use.” He was also accused of getting more than a million dollars in emergency assistance from the USDA at the start of the pandemic for cattle he did not own and making false claims to get a $1.5 million disaster loan from the SBA in early 2022. Prosecutors say Butikofer made false statements about his financial condition when he filed for bankruptcy soon after getting that SBA loan.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office news release says Butikofer used his bankruptcy filing to dupe three migrants who’d worked for him into accepting 30% of the nearly quarter of a million dollars a federal court ordered Butikofer to pay them for violating the Fair Labor Standards Act. Last year, federal agents rescued a husband, wife and teenaged daughter from South African from Butikofer’s farm. They had been living in a camper without water, electricity or heat. Then again this past April federal agents prevented other migrants recruited to work at the farm from winding up there.
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