Hard times, and handcuffs, on the farm
Toolbox
By Thatcher Moats Times Argus Staff - Published: May 8, 2009
BRAINTREE – Dairy farmer Bob Simpson said he was shocked when a sheriff's deputy appeared at his 900-acre farm in Braintree last week, handcuffed him, stuffed him in the back of the cruiser, drove him to Randolph, took his fingerprints and cited him with two felonies.
Simpson's alleged crime: twice bouncing a check for roughly $7,300 that he wrote to Feed Commodities Inc. last fall for a load of feed.
Simpson now faces two felony counts of false pretenses for writing the checks to the Vergennes business.
"I was surprised," said Simpson. "I said to the lady sheriff, who was doing the arrest, I said 'do you have to put cuffs on me?' She said, 'If you say anything more I will charge you with resisting arrest.'"
Simpson's arrest is another sign of an ailing dairy industry that has been hammered by low milk prices that began to crash last fall and dropped far below the cost of actually producing the milk. The price drop was preceded last year by a spike in the cost of fuel and fertilizer.
Simpson said he is running $60,000 a month in the red, despite renegotiating with his banks, which are allowing him to make interest-only payments on his loans. He is also trying to make his way through a web of state and federal loan and grant programs to make ends meet, so far without success.
Simpson said it's a brutal economic climate right now for farmers who are getting about $11 per hundred weight for their milk while the price of production tends to be between $17 and $18.
"I hear (that) some farmers cry when they get their milk checks," he said.
Simpson is upset with how the problem with the bounced checks was handled. He said he fully intended to pay the money when he had it, but he just doesn't have it.
"As long as they're picking up everyone in Orange County that bounced a check and handcuffing and fingerprinting them I'm OK with it," he said, adding that he does not think that is the case.
Not everyone who bounces a check gets arrested, said Captain Michael Welch of the Orange County Sheriff's Department, who handled Simpson's case.
But Welch said he tried to resolve the situation with Simpson without having to resort to criminal charges.
"The biggest issue that I had was I tried to work with him and he would not work with me," said Welch.
After Welch received the complaint from Feed Commodities on March 10, he said he contacted Simpson and gave him about a month to repay the debt or he would be prosecuted.
Welch said that Simpson did not try to work out a payment plan with Feed Commodities. So last week Welch went to the farm and tried to meet with Simpson to give him a citation, but could not locate him. Welch then went to the Randolph Police Department and called Simpson, who was not cooperative, he said.
"Basically, with a few expletives, he told me he wasn't going to cooperate," said Welch.
So on Friday, Deputy Sheriff Carrie McCool to the farm to arrest Simpson.
Welch could have issued Simpson a citation to appear in court without actually taking the dairy farmer into custody, but once Simpson made it clear he wasn't going to cooperate, Welch said he felt it would be better to make the custodial arrest.
Welch added that he has a responsibility to the victim in the case.
Welch understands that the economy is tough, especially for farmers "… but you have to follow the rules," he said.
Feed Commodities could not be reached for this story.
If Simpson had owed Feed Commodities money – but hadn't written the checks – it would be a civil matter and he would not have faced criminal charges, said Welch.
Simpson, who said he's never been arrested, now faces up to ten years in prison and a $2,000 fine on each charge if convicted. He is scheduled to appear in Vermont District Court in Chelsea on June 5 for an arraignment.
Though milk prices are extremely low, they may still drop further, according to Kelly Loftus, the communications director at the Vermont Agency of Agriculture.
"I thought it was going to be March, but there's the potential it could be April or May" before milk prices finally hit bottom, she said.
The state and federal government are attempting to come to the rescue, but it's a halting relief effort.
A computer glitch at the U.S. Department of Agriculture means the payments to farmers under the Milk Income Loss Contract are running about a month behind, said Loftus. The MILC program provides aid to farmers when the price of milk drops below a certain threshold, which it did starting in February.
Federal stimulus money has also been directed to the Vermont Economic Development Authority so it can extend operating loans to farmers.
Simpson said he applied for a loan through VEDA but was denied when it demanded to be the first group in line to receive repayment. Simpson's bank, Chittenden Bank, is first in line, he said, and wouldn't budge. So VEDA denied the loan, and told him to go to the Farm Security Administration, which has accepted his application, but the FSA told Simpson they don't currently have the money to loan, he said.
"The games we play," Simpson said. "I spend far more time on the financial stuff than I enjoy."
Simpson, 58, bought Circle Saw Farms in 1971 from his parents.
"My father wanted out," he said. "He thought I shouldn't farm, because he said there's no money in farming. Sometimes I think he was right."
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