(Sully County, SD) — An appeal by two Sully County farmers in a false crop insurance case has been rejected. A federal appeals court made the decision this week after a jury found James Garrett, and his son, Levi Garrett, guilty of making false statements about federal crop insurance back in October of 2022. Their convictions were affirmed by the appeals court in a 2-to-1 ruling. It stems from an event in 2018 when a hailstorm hit Sully County and the Garretts reported harvest losses to Crop Risk Services. James and Levi submitted two different numbers close to 250-thousand dollars that were off by almost two-thousand dollars, leading to the investigation.
