Silveus Ins. Group, Inc. also agreed to a year-long monitoring period and CEO James Cameron Silveus agreed to a year-long exclusion from federal programs.
GRAND RAPIDS – Silveus Insurance Group, Inc., and its Chief Executive Officer, James Cameron Silveus, located in Warsaw, Indiana, have agreed to pay $500,000 to resolve allegations that they violated the False Claims Act by causing the submission of fraudulent claims for federal crop insurance. The insurance agency also agreed to enter into a one-year monitoring period with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Risk Management Agency (“RMA”), while Mr. Silveus agreed to a voluntary exclusion from federal programs through March 1, 2023.
The United States contends that Mr. Silveus, through Silveus Insurance Group, served as the crop insurance agent for a Michigan crop farmer, Gaylord Lincoln, who farmed crops in Calhoun, Eaton, Ingham, and Jackson counties in Michigan. In December 2021, the United States filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan, alleging that Mr. Lincoln violated the False Claims Act by maintaining a scheme to fraudulently obtain more federal farm benefit program payments than he was entitled to receive. In the complaint, the United States alleges that Mr. Lincoln carried out this scheme by placing some of his farmlands and crops under the names of farmhands who served as “straw” farming operators, even though the farmland and crops really belonged to Mr. Lincoln....
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