US Crop Insurance Fraud Cases Total $100 Million

Many in on the act, including those who were supposed to prevent it

Harry Dean Canady will learn next month whether he'll spend the rest of his life in prison for cheating taxpayers of more than $1 million and threatening to kill the U.S. agents who brought him to justice.

A convicted felon with an alcohol-fueled temper, Canady, 64, pleaded guilty in December to defrauding the federal crop insurance system and is behind bars pending sentencing.

His thieving was just a sliver of the largest fraud in the program's 75-year history, a case that so far has ensnared 41 North Carolina tobacco farmers, insurance agents and claims adjusters whose law breaking cost taxpayers close to $100 million, federal prosecutors say.

(Hat tip to Scott Lincicome)