Washington Man Charged With Defrauding Seed Customers, Former Owner
The former manager of a Liberty Lake, WA-based seed company has been charged with laundering and wiring over $15 million through several schemes to defraud the company’s former owner and its customers. Former Jacklin Seed Company General Manager Christopher Claypool faces charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering against the company’s former owner, J.R. Simplot Company.
Jacklin Seed Company is a producer and marketer of grass seed and turfgrass.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the company contracted with independent growers for the production of proprietary grass seed varieties and fulfilled orders from a distribution facility in Albany, OR. Claypool, 52, oversaw the company’s product sales to domestic and international distributors. According to prosecutors, Claypool’s alleged schemes include packaging seed varieties with false and misleading labels, embezzling more than $12 million while posing as a foreign sales partner and conspiring with a travel agency in Spokane to inflate costs of his international travel.
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