The Washington Department of Agriculture has launched an investigation into how 200,000 cows at the center of a massive fraud allegation against a Pasco ranching operation may have slipped through its inspection process, the Spokane Spokesman-Review reported. The ghost herd is key to a legal fight between Tyson Foods Inc. and Easterday Ranches Inc., which on Monday filed for chapter 11 protection. The Easterdays, one of the largest farming and ranching families in the state, claims in court filings it owes more than $236 million to its top 20 creditors. The Pasco, Wash.-based ranching and feedlot operation is seeking to reorganize using chapter 11 federal bankruptcy law amid allegations by Tyson Foods Inc. that the ranch illegally charged the food company for 200,000 cattle that never existed. Court records released yesterday disclose that the family-run operation faces a mountain of debt that could have a major trickle-down economic impact on veterinarians, farmers, truckers and parts stores that support the Easterday operations. The legal case brought by Tyson describes a modern-day cattle rustling operation that was carried out on paper rather than by masked, horseback villains riding off with a stolen herd. Robbie Parke, manager of the state’s Livestock Inspection Program, said a check of records provided by Easterday Ranches Inc. to the state shows no evidence of a missing herd. “What we can see from our records is that the same number of cattle we inspected” arriving at Easterday’s Pasco feedlot match the records that Easterday provided indicating that it was shipped to slaughter. If Tyson Foods’ allegations of fraud are correct, the scam would be on an unprecedented scale, Parke said. Parke said that the state has launched an audit of all of Easterday’s records to try to rectify what it submitted versus the allegations Tyson has made.
