Field of Schemes: Everyone Loved Him. Nobody Knew Him.

[0:03] Welcome back. It's Steve. Before we start, I have to tell you something about this episode. [0:10] You know, I struggle with it. This is a story about a man who should be hated. Vilified, maybe. A man who committed the largest organic grain fraud in American history. $142 million. That's not chump change. A man who was just a bit younger than me. And I need you to understand, this wasn't a victimless crime. This was a crime against you. If you have ever bought organic eggs, organic milk, organic meat between 2010 and 2017, there's a real chance you paid a premium for a lie. You stood in that grocery aisle, you made a choice for you and your family, and a man, this man, in Missouri, pocketed the difference. [1:12] And it was a crime against hard-working farmers in flyover country. Farmers followed every rule and couldn't compete with a man who was just cheating. This isn't abstract. This is your grocery cart. And this is your neighbor's farm. [1:33] And yet, when I finished the research, I didn't feel anger. I felt sad. This is a story about a man who had everything. Respect. Family. Community. And threw it all away. Not in one moment, but over years. in hundreds of choices and thousands of steps. I don't know what to call that except... a tragedy? [2:16] It's Monday, August 19th, 2019. Chillicothe, Missouri, population 9,000. The kind of town where people wave from their cars. Hey! Where everybody knows your name. And your business. 5.20 in the evening. Still hot out. The sun won't set for another three hours. [2:43] Two officers from the Chillicothe Police Department pull up to a house on Webster Street. They've been called for a welfare check. No one answers the front door. They walk around. They move to the garage. [3:03] Inside, a vehicle, engine running. Behind the wheel, a man, 60 years old, not moving. Randy Constant, school board president, church volunteer, pillar of his community, is dead. Carbon monoxide poisoning. And the coroner will rule it suicide. side. Three days earlier, he stood in a federal courtroom in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the largest organic grain fraud in American history, $142 million, and his wife of 39 years in the gallery, hearing for the first time about the three women in Las Vegas that I'm going to tell you about. The money the lies the judge gave him 10 years and that same morning the morning he died, federal prosecutors held a press conference they called his scheme field of schemes, they announced his sentence to the world and by 520 that evening Randy Constant had made his last decision action. [4:31] But to understand how a man ends up here, in a garage, engine running, everything he built collapsing around him, you have to go back. Back 42 years. To a football field, a charity all-star game, a newspaper interview, and a 17-year-old boy who told his hometown what playing for a good cause meant to him. The proceeds will greatly benefit others I feel honored to have been chosen. If you want the case files and court documents behind this story, be sure to subscribe at truecrimeunheard.com. That's truecrimeunheard.com. [5:29] This is the third time so far we've told this story. Different name, different town, same pattern. A God-fearing man, a pillar of his community. He was generous, he was beloved, and he was respected. And underneath, stolen money, secret lives, and a question that just keeps coming back. How can you be a generous benefactor with someone else's stolen money? [6:03] If you listened to the Kansas banker who destroyed a town or the Linus Thuston story, you know what's coming. But this one ends in a garage in Missouri. Hi, welcome back. I'm Steve Rode. And I've spent 30 years as an investigative writer, tracking financial criminals, Ponzi schemers, embezzlers, corporate fraudsters. I also worked in emergency services two years as a police dispatcher. Surveillance photography for local law enforcement and chief pilot for public safety operations, flying airplanes, search and rescue operations for police, fire, and state departments. This case sits at the intersection of everything I've investigated, This is a story about flyover country fraud Not a Wall Street scheme or algorithms and offshore accounts No, this is a guy in rural Missouri Mixing conventional corn with organic corn And lying about it for the better part of two decades, It's simple It's unsophisticated, and it corrupted 7% of all organic corn sold in America. [7:27] His name was Randy Constant, and by the time federal investigators caught up with him, he had sold more fraudulent organic grain than anyone in the history of American agriculture. But that's not why this story matters. It matters because of who he was before and what he became. [7:56] Chillicothe, Missouri, 1977 A year I remember fondly, It's the kind of town that calls itself The Home of Sliced Bread And means it, literally The Chillicothe Baking Company sold the first loaf Of pre-sliced bread in America In 1928, 90 miles northeast of Kansas City, 9,000 people, and everybody knows everybody. And in the fall of 1976, everybody knew Randy Constance. You see, he was a senior at Chillicothe High School. Six feet tall, 175 pounds, a defensive end and offensive end. The kind of player coaches call hard-nosed. And the kind of player fathers point out to their sons. [8:58] Kid, that's what hustle looks like. According to the Chillicothe Constitution Tribune, Randy helped lead the Hornets to a 9-2 record that season. They came within inches of their third state championship. They lost a triple overtime thriller to Joplin Memorial, 31-34. It was one of the most heartbreaking games in school history. [9:28] But Randy Constant didn't let that loss define him, no. By the end of the year, he'd earned every honor a small-town football player could want. Missouri Prep All-Stater? The local paper ran his picture and parents clipped the articles. He was the golden boy. And then the letter came. He'd been selected to play in Missouri's first-ever Lions International East vs. West High School Senior All-Star Game. One of only two players chosen from Chillicothe. The best of the best representing their communities. And the game would benefit the Lions Eye Tissue Bank in Columbia. Charity service. Giving back. When the Constitution Tribune newspaper interviewed him, Randy said this, quote, I realize the game is being played for a good purpose and the proceeds will greatly benefit others. I feel honored to have been chosen, unquote. [10:38] Just 17 years old, standing on that field. His mother, Joanne, in the stands. His whole town's watching. And the proceeds will greatly benefit others. He meant it, and I believe he meant it. But 42 years later, the man who said those words would be sitting in federal court having stolen $142 million, from the same kind of hard-working people he once promised to help. The question this episode has to answer is simple. What happened to that boy? But we're not there yet. You see, in 1977, Randy Constant isn't just a football hero. He's the complete package. President of the Future Farmers of America chapter at Chillicothe High, 444 members, parents, and guests at the annual banquet His mother honored as an honorary chapter farmer He won every leadership award they had to give Including the first ever Jerry Litton Memorial Leadership Award Named for a Missouri congressman who had died in a plane crash just the year before A man who represented everything good about public service. [12:06] Randy Constant collected them all. And his future? The University of Missouri. Its major? Agricultural Economics. He was going to learn how to help feed America. [12:25] If you grew up in Chillicothe in the late 70s, Randy Constant was the kid you wanted your son to be. The kid you wanted your daughter to date and maybe marry. The kid who proved that small-town values and hard work could take you anywhere. And what nobody knew, what nobody could have known, is that this same kid would one day be called the largest organic fraud case in the history of this country by a federal prosecutor. But that's 40 years down the line. First, he has to become a family man. So Randy married his high school sweetheart, Pamela Stevens. Pam grew up in Chillicothe, too. I mean, they met young. They dated through school and married in 1980, the summer before his senior year at Mizzou. [13:29] She had plans of her own. According to a local news interview years later, Pam wanted to go to law school. But as she put it, we rarely lived near any law school. You see, the 1980s were hard years for American agriculture. Farms were failing, banks were calling loans, and Randy Constant did what a lot of ambitious young men did. He took jobs where he could find them. Archer Daniels Midland, Scowler Grain Company, Fister Seeds. The family moved constantly. Decatur, Illinois, Salina, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, the Kansas City suburbs. Town to town, job to job, building a career, an agribusiness, one transfer at a time. Three children came along the way lane morgan and claire and pam raised them while randy worked hard she gave up law school and she followed him. [14:42] Then in 1994, they came home. Back to Chillicothe. Back to the town where everybody knew them. Where their families still lived. Where Randy could finally build something of his own. He wanted to be an organic farmer. It was supposed to be the beginning. A business built on trust, on the promise that what you're buying is exactly what it says on the label. Randy understood that promise. He just never intended to keep it. [15:22] If you lived in Chillicothe in the years after Randy Constant came home, you knew him. Not just knew of him, but knew him. He was everywhere. School board member for seven years President for two The man who showed up at every meeting Every vote, every controversy About budgets and bus routes And building repairs, United Methodist Church Strong member for many, many, many years And that's how his own attorney Would describe it at sentencing, Church leader in various capacities But what people remembered most were the youth mission trips. According to the sentencing transcript, Randy would take teenagers from that church to other parts of the country. Habitat for Humanity builds. Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina in 2006, helping strangers rebuild their lives. [16:28] And then there were the things that nobody talked about, because Randy didn't want them to. For years, according to letters submitted to the court, he was the secret Santa of Chillicothe. More than a hundred people received anonymous gifts in the days before Christmas. Most of them were people of limited means, public servants, or struggling families. There were packages left on doorsteps, no name attached. He even bought cars for people who needed them. When one family needed to travel to San Diego for a mother's rare heart surgery, Randy paid for the trip. It was a godsend. Seventy letters arrived at the federal courthouse before his sentencing. Seventy people from Chillicothe writing to say, This is a good man, a generous man, and a pillar of our community. [17:28] One neighbor, Mary Ann Cole, said it plainly. She said, I knew a different Randy than what I read about in the papers. Everything about him seemed good and legitimate. Yeah, everything seemed good. But not everyone was fooled. John Heinke, a farmer in northwest Missouri. Years earlier, when Randy first came to his door as a seed salesman, Heinke sized him up immediately when he told the New Yorker his first impression. He's a smooth talker. He's one of those guys you have to worry about. Yeah, he was right. But he was also in the minority. Most people looked at Randy Constant and saw exactly what Randy wanted them to see. And that's the thing about Randy Constance, the good was real. The charity was real. The mission trips and the secret Santa and the beds for children, because in rural America, some kids don't have beds, they sleep on the floor. All of that happened, no doubt. [18:46] The question the judge would ask years later is where the money came from and whether you can be a generous man with stolen funds. To understand what Randy Constant built, you have to understand how organic certification works in America, or more precisely, how it failed. The USDA's National Organic Program sets the rules. To sell grain as certified organic, you need to prove that no synthetic pesticides, no prohibited fertilizers, no genetic modification, touched your crops for at least three years. Three very long years. You hire a certifying agency. It's a private company. To inspect your operation, they check your fields. They review your paperwork. And they issue a certificate. And then you can charge a premium for your crops. I mean, 30% more, sometimes 50% more. [19:56] Well, the problem? You see, organic corn looks exactly like conventional corn. There's no test, no chemical marker, no way to look at a bushel of grain and know how it was grown. You see the entire system runs on trust and Randy Constance saw that weakness and he exploited it. [20:22] In 2001, he partnered with an agronomist from Minnesota named Glenn Borgerdang. They founded Organic Land Management. And at their peak, they managed 6,000 acres across a dozen farms in five states. Randy also started a grain brokerage in Ocean, Iowa. Jericho Solutions. On paper, it bought organic grain from farmers and sold it to processors. In reality, it was the machine that made his fraud possible. [21:01] Randy had a line he liked to use in negotiations. According to the New Yorker, he said, Look, I'm just a dumb farmer. But he wasn't dumb, no. And he wasn't just a farmer. But that line worked, and it put people at ease, made them underestimate him. Because if you control the farms and the brokerage, you control the paperwork. You can buy cheap, conventional grain, mix it with a little organic grain, and then sell the whole thing as certified organic. The industry calls it salting. Randy Constant turned it into a $100 million enterprise. [21:50] Here's how it worked. Randy owned farmland in Missouri. Some of it was legitimately certified organic. But most of it wasn't. He'd spray prohibited chemicals on fields that were supposed to be organic. According to court documents, he directed employees to apply synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. The exact crap that was supposed to not be on organic labeled products. Consumers thought they were avoiding that. And then he'd harvest the grain and sell it through Jericho Solutions. But Randy was also buying grain from other farmers, conventional farmers, farmers who never claimed to be organic, who used whatever chemicals they wanted, who sold their corn and soybeans at standard market prices. And Randy paid them market rate. [22:53] Then, he turned around and he sold that same grain as certified organic at premium prices. The key to the fraud was the paperwork. Randy created false certificates, falsified organic transaction records, and according to the federal information filed against him, he made fraudulent claims to the USDA about his farming practices. When inspectors came, he used the salting technique. Mix a little real organic grain in the shipment, show them legitimate fields used during the audit, and then bury them in documentation. [23:41] Glenn Borgerding watched it happen once, and years later, he told The New Yorker, quote, Randy threw down this document, tied to this document, tied to that document, and presented it like it's so obvious any idiot can figure this out. Why can't you? The inspector retreated, unquote. Borgerding had another way of describing it. The tone in Randy's voice and the way he acted, it was like Novocaine. It just puts you at ease. That was Randy's gift. He numbed people's suspicions. The fraud wasn't sophisticated. It didn't require algorithms or offshore accounts or shell corporations. It just required someone willing to lie. consistently for years to everyone and Randy Constant was willing. [24:51] Let me stop here for a moment. 30 years investigating financial criminals, and I can tell you the most dangerous frauds aren't the complicated ones. No, they're the simple ones that scale. Randy Constant didn't invent anything. He didn't hack a system or exploit some exotic loophole. Now he just lied. On paper after paper, shipment after shipment, year after year. The organic certification system is built on trust. Inspectors can't test every bushel. They rely on documentation. They rely on the assumption that farmers, people who feed America, are telling the truth. Randy saw that assumption and realized, huh, nobody's checking. [25:48] And here's the thing. This wasn't a one-time temptation This was who he became. [25:59] A former employee named Ty Dick told The New Yorker that Randy once suggested importing cheap Chinese tilapia fish and selling it in America as American-grown from a fish farm, Dick pushed back Quote, we can't sell those to Whole Foods it goes against everything we're saying, unquote. Randy's response? You think they'd notice? [26:30] That's not a man who fell into fraud. That's a man looking for any angle, any weakness, any shortcut to easy money. [26:42] You see, the grain scheme wasn't an accident. Turns out, it was a pattern. Let me bring this home. If you've ever stood in a grocery store aisle and reached for a carton of eggs with a green label, you know, the ones that cost two bucks more, because you wanted organic, you wanted to do something good for your family and your kids, you need to hear these numbers. Ready? According to the USDA data submitted as evidence in this case, in 2016, American farmers sold approximately 18.2 million bushels of certified organic corn. Randy Constant, his operations accounted for roughly 7% of all of it. Organic soybeans, he controlled approximately 8% of the entire U.S. supply. [27:40] One man in Chillicothe, Missouri, controlling 7% to 8% of America's organic grain market. And according to the government's sentencing memorandum, over 90% of what he sold was a lie. It was fraudulent. Let me say that again. 90% 9 out of every 10 bushels Randy Constant sold as certified organic was conventional grain sprayed with pesticides, herbicides, and synthetic fertilizers that organic certification exists to avoid. [28:20] Here's what that means for your grocery cart. The government's sentencing brief states it plainly. Quote, the majority of defendants' customers used the defendants' grain for livestock or poultry feed, resulting in thousands and thousands of consumers paying premium prices for meat or poultry products that were falsely labeled as organic. Unquote. Organic eggs? The chickens were eating Randy Constance grain. Organic milk? The cows were fed his polluted corn. Organic chicken? Organic pork? Organic beef? If you bought it between 2010 and 2017, there is a real chance the animals were raised on feed that came from his operation. [29:13] And you paid for it. You paid the organic premium, 30, 40, sometimes 50% more than conventional. And what you paid for was a lie. The court documents describe the volume, more than 11.5 million bushels of grain over seven years. That's enough to fill 3,600 railroad cars. If one arrived at a grain elevator every single day, it would take nearly 10 years to unload them all. The total? $142,433,475 in fraudulent grain sales. But the government's sentencing memorandum says that number actually understates the actual damage. [30:09] Constant sold his grain to distributors and feed operations. And then they resold it at a markup. The grain became animal feed, which became eggs, milk, and meat, which was sold to grocery stores, which sold it to you. The prosecutors put it this way. The defrauded end purchasers paid considerably more, perhaps exponentially more, than the $142 million figure. [30:38] Exponentially more. Get it? And there's another set of victims the court identified. Not consumers, not you and me, but farmers, neighbors, people he cared about. Legitimate organic farmers, the ones in Iowa and Minnesota and Nebraska who actually followed the rules, who didn't spray prohibited chemicals, who waited the required three years for their land to qualify, who did everything right. They had to compete with Randy Constant. And because he was lying, because his grain wasn't actually organic, He could sell it cheaper than they ever could. He undercut honest farmers for years while pocketing the premium himself. And the government's brief says it directly. Legitimate farmers, quote, suffered financially by having to compete in an industry where the defendant, because he was lying and cheating, could sell more than $125 million in fraudulently marketed grain for lower prices than what legitimate farmers possibly could, unquote. [32:01] Picture one of those farmers, a farmer in Iowa, third generation on the same land. He spent three years converting his fields to organic, three years of lower yields and higher costs and no premium prices yet. He did it because he believed in it. He did it because his customers believed in it. And when he finally got certified, when he finally could sell his grain as organic, he found out he couldn't compete. Some broker in Missouri was offering the same certification at prices that made absolutely no sense. He didn't know why. He just knew he was losing. And that farmer never appears in the court documents. No victim impact statement, no name in the newspaper, just another honest person who played by the rules and got crushed by someone who didn't. That's who randy constant soul from not just consumers not just an abstract system real people good people trying to do the right thing. [33:16] So that's the scale seven percent of american organic corn eight percent of its organic soybeans It's 90% fraudulent, 11.5 million bushels, $142 million, [33:30] thousands of consumers, honest farmers driven out of business. And for seven years, nobody caught them. The question is, how? How does one man in rural Missouri fake organic certification on that scale for that long without anyone noticing? Thank you. Well, the answer starts in 2007 when someone did notice. They tested his grain, and they found exactly what you'd expect. And then, nothing happened. [34:12] In 2007, a woman named Mary Jo Rablin, she's running a company called Nevada Soy Products. It's in Citrus Heights, California. She buys organic soybeans, processes them, and sells them to customers who trust the organic label. One day, a rail car arrives from Jericho Solution. It's Randy Constance Brokerage. But something feels off. Rablin decides to test the shipment. She sends a sample to California Seed and Plant Lab, and the results come back. 20% GMO contamination A GMO is genetically modified organisms, seeds engineered in a lab. It's the one thing that certified organic absolutely cannot be. 20% in a shipment labeled certified organic. The lab director, Parm Randhawa, put it plainly, it's either from unintentional mixing of the rail car with GM soybeans or someone is trying to make money quick by mixing GM soybeans with organic. Mary Jo Rablin lost $100,000 on that shipment. She reported it. [35:42] Her certifier filed a complaint with the USDA's National Organic Program. And the Nevada Department of Agriculture filed a separate complaint. What happened? Nothing. According to Rablin, she never received any contact from regulators. No investigation, no follow-up, no action. And she wasn't the only one. [36:12] Glenn Borgerding, Randy's former business partner, had split from organic land management that same year. He had an uneasy feeling about Constance activities, and he reported his concerns. He suggested an unannounced inspection. And guess what? Nothing happened. Here's the thing. when Borgerding complained to people in the organic industry that Constant had swindled him? A woman named Sue Baird, an industry insider, had a very telling response. According to the New Yorker, she said, Everybody knows that about Randy. Everybody knew and nobody stopped him. A Clarkson Grain employee later explained why. They said, In his mind, he could slick-talk anyone, and he had no fear of actually getting caught. [37:15] In 2012, a competing certifier named Sam Welsh filed another complaint. A truck of soybeans tested 100% GMO. And the National Organic Program made one phone call. And then nothing. Welsh pressed the agency for six years. He told the New Yorker, It seems like when you report things, they're looking for reasons not to have to investigate. [37:49] And here's what makes 2007 unforgivable. Randy Constant learned something from that first complaint. He learned that GMO contamination could be caught. And lab tests existed. So he adapted. If you listened to our Eli Weinstein episode, you know I laid out the scammer playbook. Rule number one, When you get caught, don't stop. You get smarter, you patch the hole, you keep going. And that is exactly what Randy did. According to reporting, from that point forward, Constance stuck to conventional, non-GMO varieties. Still not organic. Still sprayed with prohibited chemicals. But chemically identical to the real thing. No test could catch him now. The system didn't stop Randy Constant in 2007. It taught him how to cheat better. And then for the next 10 years, that's exactly what he did. [39:05] I need to pause here for a moment, because this is where the system failed completely. Two years as a police dispatcher taught me something about institutional response. When calls come in, there's a decision point. Investigate or file it away. And sometimes, too often, the easier path wins. The organic certification system had multiple warnings about Randy Constance. Mary Jo Rablin, Glenn Borgerding, Sam Welsh, different people, different years, all pointing at the same operation. And the response? Seems to be looking for reasons not to investigate. And here's what I think happened. The USDA was focused on imported grain fraud, Turkish shipments, Ukraine suppliers, Foreign operations they couldn't easily audit And the assumption was that domestic fraud was just rare American farmers don't lie, And meanwhile, the largest fraud of all Was happening in the Midwest heartland Where everybody's honest Wink wink. [40:26] That assumption cost consumers $142 million It cost honest farmers their livelihoods and it let Randy Constant operate for another decade. [40:39] If anyone, anyone had listened in 2007, this story ends differently. But nobody did. And while regulators looked the other way, Randy Constant was building something else. [40:55] Something his wife and children and church and community knew nothing about. [41:05] There's another version of Randy Constant's story. It just doesn't happen in Chillicothe. It doesn't involve church mission trips or school board meetings or Secret Santa gifts on doorsteps or beds for kids. It happens in Las Vegas, Sin City. According to evidence presented at his sentencing, Randy Constant made more than 20 trips to Las Vegas between 2010 and 2017. That's roughly three trips a year, while his wife and kids stayed home in Missouri. That former employee I mentioned, Ty Dick, he witnessed it firsthand. Dick worked for Randy at Quixotic Farming. That's the fish farm operation in Colorado. Not long after he started, he got a phone call. Hey, what you doing? Randy asked. Dick said he was working. Come to Vegas. We'll be there in three hours. How soon can you get there? [42:15] Dick flew to Las Vegas that day. He met up with Randy and John Burton, Randy's partner from Jericho Solutions. According to Dick's account in The New Yorker, quote, it was immediately clear that these guys have been doing this a long time because they've got their spots, unquote. out. [42:37] They stayed at the Bellagio, round-the-clock drivers. Randy bought tickets to MMA fights and rodeos and booked all the surrounding seats, 75 seats, just so they could sit in isolation. Dick told the New Yorker his gambling limit was $20. I'm done for the night. And when he said he was ready to quit, Randy handed him thousands of dollars worth of chips. Spend mine, he said. But the gambling, that wasn't the secret. According to court documents and testimony, Randy Constant maintained sexual relationships with three women who lived in Las Vegas. The group called them the Vegas Girlfriends. They showed up in the late evening. They were regulars. Dick said that on one of his first trips, there were even escorts waiting for him up in his room. [43:40] He said he declined. The court documents detailed the spending. Randy paid over $225,000 to two of those women for work they did for his companies. According to prosecutors, they did, quote, very little of value, unquote. But I guess it depends on how you define value. [44:07] He opened a joint bank account with one of them, more than $110,000, flowed through that account. Vehicle purchases, insurance payments, international travel, and then there were the boob jobs. According to the stipulation filed by the court, Randy Constant spent approximately $2 million supporting those three women in Las Vegas over the seven years. $2 million. [44:36] While his wife taught preschool at the Methodist church back home, while he packed buddy bags, those are the food bags for hungry school children to take home on weekends, and while he delivered beds to kids in need. [44:55] Ty Dick noticed something else about those trips, something that stuck with him. Randy Constant had led youth mission trips for a church. A church! And Dick noted, with firm views about the sinfulness of gambling. And here he was at the Bellagio, handing out $1,000 chips, surrounded by escorts. Steve Abernathy the man who sold Randy the Colorado fish farm tried to make sense of it he told the New Yorker he's a small-town guy he never really got out and did anything so maybe that's what Vegas was the life Randy felt he missed the version of himself he kept hidden from Chillicothe and the church, and his wife and his family and his kids and his friends. [45:58] So that's the question this case keeps asking. Not how did he do it. We know that. But how did he live with it? I mean, think about it this way, all right? It's Sunday morning in Chillicothe. Randy Constant is at the United Methodist Church. Maybe he's helping with the youth group. Maybe he's shaking hands in the fellowship hall. Maybe he's planning the next mission trip to help strangers rebuild their homes. That afternoon, the phone rings. Come to Vegas, we'll be there in three hours. [46:39] Sunday night in Las Vegas, Randy Constant is at the Bellagio handing out $1,000 chips to women. He's paying to be there. Same man, same weekend. Vegas was only hours away by plane. And he made that trip more than 20 times. Two different lives that just never touched until a federal courtroom forced them together. [47:09] I know I shouldn't be surprised or shocked or amazed that this has happened. But how do you pack food bags for hungry children on Sunday morning and fly to Vegas that afternoon? How do you lead teenagers on Habitat for Humanity trips and then open a joint bank account with your mistress? How do you write checks to the Methodist Church and checks to escorts in the same week? Maybe on the same day I don't have an answer and I'm not sure Randy did either, Hey, if you're still with me, and I hope you are, because what you're about to hear will make it all collapse. Make sure you're subscribed at truecrimeunheard.com. [48:01] Now, where were we? Oh, Randy Constant has two lives, one in Chillicothe, one in Las Vegas, and in 2017, they were about to collide. [48:18] It's 2017, and somewhere in the supply chain, the buyer decides to test their grain. Standard due diligence. It's what any good buyer would do. They send a sample to the lab. They verify what they're buying, and the results come back. Randy Constance Certified Organic Grain test positive for GMO. This time, somebody listens. The USDA Office of the Inspector General opens an investigation. The FBI joins. Federal agents start pulling records, bank statements, transaction logs, shipping manifests. The salting, the false certificates, the conventional grain sold as organic, the Nebraska farmers who grew crops knowing Randy would lie about them, the millions flowing to Las Vegas, all of it. According to The New Yorker, federal agents arrived at Randy's home in a convoy of vehicles. Glenn Borgering, his former partner, heard about the arrest, and he told the magazine he wasn't exactly floored. [49:37] He'd picked up worrisome clues years before. [49:42] The scheme that ran for more than a decade was finally over. But Randy Constant wasn't going down alone. He'd pulled other men into this, including a decorated Vietnam War hero who'd spent his life doing the right thing. Randy Constant didn't do this alone. No. To sell 11 million bushels of fake organic corn and grain, He needed farmers, real farmers, growing real crops, willing to look the other way, while Randy lied about what they produced. And he found them in Nebraska. Tom Brennan, 70 years old, a Vietnam veteran. According to Judge Williams, he was a, quote, legitimate war hero, unquote. He was a decorated platoon leader who served his country. The kind of man who had done the hard thing when it had mattered. The kind of man who spent his whole life doing the right thing. And Randy Constant got him to look the other way. [51:01] His son, James Brennan, and a neighbor, Mike Potter, all from Overton, Nebraska, a small town about 200 miles west of Omaha. They grew conventional grain, and they knew Randy was selling it as organic. And they collected the higher prices and convinced themselves, as their attorney put it, to look the other way. The Brennans and Potter received over $10 million from Randy Constant during the scheme In October 2018, all three pleaded guilty to wire fraud, That's what this fraud did It didn't just steal from consumers It corrupted people who had spent their whole lives doing the right thing. [51:51] And there was a fourth man, John Burton from Clarksdale, Missouri. Randy's friend and his partner at Jericho Solutions. The man who went to Vegas with him, who sat in those 75 empty seats at MMA fights. Burton grew non-organic grain and sold it to Randy knowing it would be marketed as organic. He also worked on Randy's farms, spraying those fields with the prohibited chemicals. He pleaded guilty in May 2019. [52:30] And there was one more, Stephen Whiteside, from rural Chillicothe. His wife taught English with Pam Constant at the high school. The families were friends. Whiteside signed a document in 2015 falsely claiming he owned or farmed certain land. Land he had no connection to. So Randy could get it certified organic. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor in 2020. The sentences varied. Tom Brennan, the decorated veteran, got three months. The judge acknowledged his war service. James Brennan got 20 months. Mike Potter got two years. John Burton got 22 months. Whiteside got probation. As sentencing, the prosecutor made a point of noting what Randy had done to these men. Quote he did not fall into this your honor he saw a weakness he exploited it and then he got others to exploit it with him unquote People with no criminal histories and people who trusted Randy. Randy Constant didn't just steal from consumers. He pulled other men down with him. [53:52] It's December 20th, 2018, and now we're at the Federal Courthouse in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Randy Constant stands before Magistrate Judge Mark Roberts, his attorney Mike Weinhart beside him. The hearing lasts 43 minutes. Randy pleads guilty to one count of wire fraud, and he admits to fraudulent grain sales, totaling at least $142,433,475. He admits that at least 90% of the grain was non-organic, and he agrees to forfeit $128 million in proceeds. The judge finds his plea voluntary, finds he understands the charges, finds he knows the maximum penalty, 20 years. Randy Constant is found guilty. But he's not taken into custody. The government doesn't ask for detention. He walks out of that courthouse the same way he walked in. [55:06] Pending sentencing. He'll stay free for eight more months. And when he finally stands before the judge, it will be on his 39th wedding anniversary with his wife in the gallery, about to hear things she never knew. [55:28] On August 16th, 2019, at the Federal Courthouse in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Randy Constant stands at the defense table His attorney Mark Weinhart beside him Behind him, in the gallery His family and Pam His wife of 39 years, 39 years to the day, August 16, 1980 Randy and Pam Constant got married High school sweethearts from Chillicothe, Missouri She gave up law school to follow him across the Midwest. Decatur, Salina, Nebraska, Iowa, town to town, job to job. Raising three kids, three great kids along the way. And now on their anniversary, she's in a federal courtroom. About to hear things she never knew. Judge C.J. Williams presiding. [56:32] The prosecutor speaks first. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jacob Schnuck calls it what it is, quote, the largest known organic fraud case in the history of this country, unquote. He dismisses the idea that Randy somehow fell into this crime. He didn't fall into this, Your Honor. He saw a weakness, he exploited it, and then he got others to exploit it with him. Thank you. [57:03] Then it's Randy's turn. He rises, he faces the judge. He apologizes to the consumers and to the farmers, the grain merchants. He apologizes to his employees, to the farmers he brought into the scheme, and to his family. Then he says the line that matters. Quote, The organic system in this country is built on trust, and I violated that trust. Unquote. He sits down. [57:40] Now the judge speaks. Judge Williams has read the letters. Seventy of them from Chillicothe. Friends, neighbors, church members. They call Randy a pillar of the community. A good man. And the judge acknowledges them. And then he sets those letters aside. He says, in some ways, I find Randy Constant to be somewhat like the organic grain. That is, he's not what is advertised. On the surface, the letters, the charity, and the generosity. He was the paragon of virtue. Below the surface, the judge says, he was lying and cheating to achieve those goals. [58:39] And then Judge Williams addresses the charity, the anonymous gifts, the legend of generosity. And he says, I'm not terribly moved by all the financial charity reflected in the defendant's past. It's easy to be charitable with someone else's money. He reads from one supporter's letter. At least he wasn't selfish with the money. And the judge looks up and says, But he was. [59:16] Then the judge references the sealed document. Stipulation 37-1. The detailed breakdown of how Randy spent the money. He doesn't read the details aloud, but he makes it clear what's in it. Trips to Las Vegas, salaries to, quote, family members, unquote, and expenditures showing a person very different than the person he held himself out to be. Pam is in that gallery, 39 years married, their anniversary, hearing for the first time about the trips and the women. She had written a letter to the court. She said, you expect bad people to do bad things, but this is a good person who did a bad thing. [1:00:14] She came to court that day anyway, and on their anniversary. Knowing all of the warts, her attorney said. Judge Williams delivers the sentence. One hundred twenty-two months. Ten years and two months. But Randy Constant is not taken into custody. The judge gives him the choice. Start serving your sentence right now. Or surrender yourself to the federal facility later. White-collar criminals have that choice. And Randy chooses later. He walks out of that courthouse free for now with his wife beside him. Three days. [1:01:02] Seventy letters said he was a good man. The judge said it's easy to be charitable with someone else's money. And the prosecutor said he didn't fall into anything. He saw a weakness and exploited it And Randy himself said he violated the trust The entire organic system was built on, Everyone spoke But what Randy Constant did next He did alone. [1:01:45] It's easy to be charitable with someone else's money. That's the line that stays with me. Because it's the question at the center of this entire case. At the center of every case like it. How can you be a generous benefactor with stolen money? Randy Constant bought cars for people who needed them. He paid for a family to fly to San Diego for heart surgery. He bought a phone for a teenager with cancer. All of that is real. All of it is documented. And 70 letters attesting to his generosity. But the money wasn't his. Every dollar he gave away came from consumers like you, who paid for organic food and got something different they didn't want. From farmers who played by the rules and lost business to a man who cheated. From a system built on trust that he systematically exploited. The beds he delivered to children in need, paid for with fraud. The mission trips to Mississippi, funded by lies. The secret Santa gifts, stolen money, wrapped in anonymity. [1:03:05] The judge saw through it, and that's why 70 letters really didn't matter. Because generosity with stolen money isn't charity. It's laundering your conscience. You can't buy back your soul with someone else's stolen money. [1:03:26] Let me stop here for a moment. At sentencing, his attorney said Randy was deeply ashamed, and his wife's statement said he was deeply ashamed of his conduct. And after reading the entire sentencing transcript. [1:03:45] He sure fell on the sword when talking to the court about his actions. This is a good time to remember that if you're a site subscriber, you will get access to all the court documents through the secret link when I send out this show's episode release. You can read what I read. If you're not a subscriber, subscribe now so you don't miss out in the future. [1:04:12] And I believe the shame was real. In that courtroom on that day, with his family watching, I really, really do. But here's what 30 years investigating criminals has taught me. [1:04:27] Shame that arrives only at sentencing isn't conscience. It's consequence. Where was that shame on the 14th trip to Las Vegas? Where was the religious conviction When he opened a joint bank account With a hooker who wasn't his wife, Where was the man who led youth mission trips For a church with firm views About the sinfulness of gambling When he was handing Thousand dollar chips to escorts At the Bellagio, He had years to stop Hundreds of chances to choose differently and every single time he chose the lie. His defense attorney called him a real puzzle. I don't think he's a puzzle at all. I think he's a pattern. Hector Sanchez, the man who worked for Randy at his fish farm, put it more bluntly. He told the New Yorker, He was in it for the money. Greed. That's all it was. You start making money, you want more. It's an addiction, man. [1:05:47] And that's what I see here, not a puzzle, an addiction to money, to status, to the double life. [1:05:58] We've seen this before on the show. Small town Midwest. God-fearing pillars of the community. The Kansas banker who stole from his neighbors. If you missed that episode, it's called How a Kansas Banker's Crypto Mistake Destroyed a Town. [1:06:18] Linus Thuston who used his position for sexual exploitation of women that episode is Betrayal of Justice, and now Randy Constant same pattern living double lives sorry only when they're caught and then asking for forgiveness and understanding, That's not remorse. That's the playbook. [1:06:56] Three days after sentencing, it's Monday, August 19th, 2019. Randy Constant wakes up in Chillicothe. In the house, the house he had to leave soon. He's already sold it, according to his attorney And Pam has gone back to teaching To support the family, Hector Sanchez had visited Randy that spring While he was packing up He saw a man who had spent decades Projecting confidence Now facing the collapse of everything Sanchez told the New Yorker what he saw, He was leaving his beautiful Humongous, gorgeous house That he raised his kids in he was scared shitless. [1:07:46] That morning in Cedar Rapids federal prosecutors held a press conference they announced the sentences Randy Constant 10 years and 2 months the largest organic fraud in American history they call it field of schemes, and the story explodes it goes national. [1:08:08] Now we don't know what Randy he did that day. We don't know who he talked to, what he thought about, and how he spent his final hours. But what we do know is this. At approximately 5.20 in the evening, officers from the Chillicothe Police Department arrive at the house. It's a welfare check. No one answers the front door. They walk around to the garage. Inside, a vehicle. Engine running. Randy Constant is in that vehicle. Not moving. Carbon monoxide poisoning. The death certificate lists the duration. 20 minutes. Livingston County Coroner Scott Lindsley rules it suicide. Randy Constant was 60 years old. He had three children, five grandchildren, a wife of 39 years who stood beside him even after she learned the truth. And he never served a day of his sentence. [1:09:25] The next day, Pam Constant released a statement. She said, we are still in shock and disbelief over yesterday's events when my husband took his own life. I know Randy was deeply ashamed of his conduct. And then she asked for privacy. The funeral was held that Friday, 10 o'clock in the morning. It was a late August day in Missouri. That usually means a press of heat, temperatures pushing 90, humidity that sticks to your skin. But that week was different. A cool front had pushed through, one of those rare late summer reprieves. Mid-70s, and a breeze. The kind of day that felt like, at the United Methodist Church, the same church where Randy had volunteered for decades, where he led youth mission trips where Pam had taught preschool. The memorial contributions were directed to the Beds for Children ministry, the program Randy had participated in, with money that wasn't his. [1:10:43] Because Randy died before his appeal window closed, the federal court vacated his conviction. Technically, legally, he died an innocent man. The court ordered the $100 special assessment he'd paid be returned to his surviving spouse. $100. From a $142 million fraud. The forfeiture judgment, that $128 million, remained in place, but there was nothing left to forfeit. Randy had already sold the house, the farm equipment was gone, the money had been spent. On Las Vegas trips, on three women, on boob jobs, on being generous with other people's money. [1:11:36] I wish I could play you a quote from one of the thousands of consumers who bought Randy's grain. But that's the thing about this fraud. Most of them still don't know they were victims. But chances are, you were probably one of them. You bought organic eggs. You bought organic milk. You fed your families. You stood in grocery aisles and paid extra because you trusted that label. And you'll never know what you actually paid for. So, the best person to ask about this is, ask yourself how you feel about that. Picture it this way. Eleven and a half million bushels of fraudulent grain. Enough to fill 13,000 semi-trucks. Line them up bumper to bumper, and they'd stretch 177 miles from Kansas City to Des Moines. That's how much fake organic rain Randy Constance sold. [1:12:35] And it ended up in your refrigerator and in your mouth. [1:12:44] Glenn Borgering, Randy's former business partner, the man who first suspected something was wrong back in 2007, he heard about the suicide, and he told the magazine, the reaction you get from people after hearing of a suicide is that he deserved what he got. And then he paused. But I don't feel that way. There was a lot of good in Randy, and the real tragedy is that he went down this path. I understand that reaction. It's complicated, because the truth is complicated. [1:13:26] I need to tell you something. I personally know what carbon monoxide poisoning feels like. Years ago, I was flying as chief pilot for public safety operations. And mid-flight, things started to get kind of wonky. Thoughts not connecting. Coordination off. And then my skin started to tingle. And I remembered my training. I looked at my fingernails. You look at the beds under your fingernails. They were cherry red. That's a warning sign. I thought, if I don't stop this situation, I'm going to die from carbon monoxide poisoning. I got on the ground as fast as I could. I made it. But here's what most people don't understand. Carbon monoxide isn't instant. There's a window when you know something's wrong. Where you could still move. You could still open a door. You could still change things. The death certificate says 20 minutes. Randy Constance sat in that garage for 20 minutes. He felt it happening. He felt himself slipping away. And he stayed. [1:14:47] That's not a moment of weakness. That's 20 minutes of choosing. And whatever he was running from, the prison sentence, the shame, the look on Pam's face, it was worse to him than sitting in that garage, feeling the edges go dark, and not opening the door. [1:15:12] I don't know what to call that, except sad. But this story doesn't end in a garage. There's still a question of what Randy Constant left behind and whether anyone learned anything from it. [1:15:31] One year after sentencing, Tom Brennan, the Vietnam War hero, the one that Randy had pulled into the scheme, died in an automobile accident. He'd already served his three months in prison. He was 72. Another life that ended in wreckage. You know, I have a personal saying I come back to a lot in this work. There's no sense wasting a perfectly good mistake, as long as we can learn from it. The organic industry learned from Randy Constance. Eventually, in January 2023, the USDA published the Strengthening Organic Enforcement Rule, the biggest update to organic regulations since the original act in 1990. Brokers have to be certified now. Unannounced inspections are mandatory. And fraud prevention plans are required. It took the largest organic fraud in American history to make that happen. It's too late for Mary Jo Rablin and her $100,000 loss. It's too late for the honest farmers who couldn't compete with a man who was cheating. And it's too late for the consumers like you who paid premium prices for lies. And it was far too late for Randy Constance. [1:16:57] But maybe not too late for you. Because the loopholes Randy exploited Most of them are closed now, But not before other farmers tried the same scheme In the years since, federal prosecutors have charged Organic fraud cases in South Dakota and Minnesota Same playbook, same lies Same lavish spending with stolen money And that pattern continued. [1:17:29] The day after he died, the Chillicothe Constitution Tribune, the same paper that had celebrated him as a high school star, published a story about his crimes. According to the New Yorker magazine, it was their only such story. And in it, Randy Constant, once the town hero, was described as formerly of Chillicothe. Formerly. Like he never really belonged there at all. You remember those other episodes I mentioned earlier, the Kansas banker, Linus Thuston, the prosecutor? Different names, different Midwest small towns. Same pattern. God-fearing men. Community leaders. Secret lives. Until you ask where the money or favors came from. The judge said it best. It's easy to be charitable with someone else's money. And the question I keep coming back to is the same question I started with. [1:18:40] Not how they did it, but how did they live with it? [1:18:49] 42 years earlier, a 17-year-old boy stood on a football field in Chillicothe, Missouri. He had just been selected for the Lions All-Star Game, he was proud, a charity game to benefit the blind. One of the best young players in the state, his mother in the stands, his future wide open. And the reporter asking him how he felt about playing for a good cause, and Randy Constance said, The proceeds will greatly benefit others. I feel very honored to have been chosen. He was right. The proceeds did benefit others. The three women in Las Vegas, the anonymous recipients of his Secret Santa gifts. Just not the others that he promised. I don't have an answer for how that 17-year-old boy became the man in the garage. I'm not sure Randy Constance did either. [1:19:51] If you want case files and court documents behind this story, The sentencing transcript, the government's brief, the USDA data. Well, you needed to have already subscribed before at truecrimeunheard.com. Site subscribers will get the secret link to that data. So don't miss out on future shows. Subscribe now. You can also find me on Facebook, Substack, Instagram, and YouTube. Just search True Crime Unheard. And if this episode hit you the way it hit me, Please. Take 10 seconds and leave a rating or review wherever you're listening. It helps other people find these stories. I'm Steve Rode. This has been True Crime Cases You Haven't Heard. Stay safe. Stay curious. And stay subscribed.