FORT WORTH — Tony Eugene Lyon, 52, of Fort Worth, Texas, was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge John McBryde to serve 120 months in federal prison following his guilty plea in November 2016 to a felony offense stemming from a $5 million dollar cattle scheme he orchestrated, announced U.S. Attorney John Parker of the Northern District of Texas.
Lyon pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud. Judge McBryde ordered that he surrender to the Bureau of Prisons on April 14, 2017.
According to documents filed in the case, Lyon worked in the cattle industry in and around the town of Perrin, Texas, and became well-known in the North Texas cattle markets. He engaged in the buying, fattening, and selling of cattle, including securing and cultivating pastureland for the cattle and transporting them.
Midwestern Cattle Marketing (MCM) was a cattle brokering company located in Sidney, Nebraska. Lyon became a representative in North Texas for MCM and began buying and selling cattle on behalf of MCM at North Texas cattle sale barns. In early 2014, Lyon told MCM they could save money if they bypassed the cattle sale barns and purchased directly from him.
From February 4, 2015, to June 29, 2015, Lyon represented to MCM that George Cattle Company (GCC), located in Fort Worth, Texas, bought cattle from MCM at least 130 times. Lyon maintained control of all aspects of the cattle sales transactions involving GCC, including setting the sales prices and timing of the payments to MCM; thereby, facilitating a check-kiting scheme. Lyon’s checking account was continually overdrawn as a result of his personal spending and the additional deficits he caused when writing checks from the account.
To cover the increasing deficit, Lyon wrote and deposited MCM checks into his checking account at ever-increasing amounts causing insufficient funds (NSF) in the account to cover a five-million-dollar check that Lyon wrote to purchase cattle from MCM for GCC. When contacted, Lyon advised that John George agreed to provide $5.3 million to cover the NSF check, however, the account remained overdrawn. Lyon later admitted that neither John George nor GCC existed. As a result of Lyon’s scheme, MCM suffered a loss of approximately $5,137,449, causing it to go out of business.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Nancy Larson prosecuted.
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Key Facts
- State: Texas
- Agency: DOJ USAO
- Category: Fraud & Financial Crimes|White Collar Crime
- Source: Official Source ↗
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