YAKIMA, Washington â Two major creditors Wednesday, July 14, dropped their opposition to the sale of Easterday farms, clearing the way for the Mormon church to buy an Eastern Washington family farm brought down by debt and fraud.
Prudential Insurance Co. and Equitable Life Insurance agreed to withdraw their objections during a mid-hearing break in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Yakima. In return, they are guaranteed to receive most, if not all, of the millions of dollars owed them by Cody Easterday, his wife, mother and their companies.
The parties, returning from the closed conference, outlined the agreement to Judge Whitman Holt, settling a dispute that had threatened to block the $209 million acquisition by Farmland Reserve Inc., affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
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They call it “Cattlegate.” It’s a modern-day cattle rustling scheme. Let’s start at the beginning.
In 1958, Ervin Easterday moved his family and farming operation from Nampo, Idaho to southeastern Wash., where he purchased 300 acres of undeveloped land in the new Columbia Basin Reclamation Irrigation project. With a meager annual rainfall of 7 inches per year, the new supply of water from Grand Coulee Dam changed this land forever.
As a young man, Ervin’s son, Gale, said he worked what seemed like endless hours on a Caterpillar leveling and clearing this new ground so water had access to run down furrows.
Courtesy of Easterday Farms public Facebook page
Updated Monday, Feb. 8, 2021, 5 p.m. PT
The Easterday family spread unfurls across the Columbia Basin yawning onion farms, massive potato sheds, huge swaths of ground cut into pens for cattle and a fleet of employee vehicles and tractors.
But the Easterday family has other assets: A million-dollar house in Phoenix and a private plane and hangar.
Since December, Easterday Ranches has been embroiled in an alleged scandalous cattle rustling scheme. The charge: Easterday invented 200,000 head of cattle on paper. Major client Tyson Fresh Meats sued, asking for compensation of at least $225 million for the ghost herd. Days before the lawsuit was filed, the Easterdays sold one of their key properties a cattle feedlot called the “North Lot” in Franklin County to a competitor of Tyson for $16 million.