Even on freak days when the sky pissed rain, the farms of Patrick Esch and Ed Dean Jagers remained bone-dry. Parched became payday. In one of the most madcap crop insurance scandals on record, Esch and Jagers turned moisture misery into a multi-million-dollar heist. The Colorado cowboys stole $6.5 million worth of raindrops.
The farming duo manipulated U.S. weather—literally. They plugged, tipped, covered, and destroyed federal rain gauges in Colorado and Kansas, ensuring NOAA weather stations recorded zero-level rainfall. The result? A windfall in illicit gain.
Before landing in USDA crosshairs, via a bizarre narrative more fitting for Jerry Springer, rather than Taylor Sheridan, Esch and Jagers set the fuse on a powder keg of family intrigue, truck-stop hijinks, cash bribes, snitches, whistleblowers, prison escapes, and dead bodies.
Welcome to greed borne of water, or lack thereof. Every drop counts in large amounts.
Lust for Dust
In 2016, beyond the public eye, a whodunnit mystery raged across a multi-county, massive footprint of land in deep southeast Colorado and southwest Kansas. Someone was playing deranged weatherman and faking a drought.
Dominated by dryland agriculture, much of the region often squeaks by on roughly 14-16” of rain per year. “The precipitation data we were seeing made no sense to us,” says Jennifer Stark, then Meteorologist in Charge at the National Weather Servies’ (NWS) Pueblo Office. “We’d watch radar with storms moving over southeast Colorado, and we had weather stations tabulating data hourly, but they’d often report no precipitation.”
Simply, rain appeared to fall everywhere except into NWS rain gauges. “We started having weather observers calling and saying they were having trouble with their gauges,” Stark adds. “Our technicians would go take a look and find unbelievably odd things.”
The “odd things” occurred at weather stations (900 operate nationwide) located from Colorado’s Ellicott to La Junta to Ordway to Springfield to Walsh, or across the state line into Kansas from Syracuse to Coolidge to Elkhart, and beyond. Whether publicly positioned alongside airports, or discretely hidden on desolate grassland backroads, a minimum of 16 stations were vandalized or manipulated. NWS personnel reported a surreal litany of $11,000 in damage to rain gauges: funnels siliconed, bowls tipped, wires cut, parts shotgunned, bolts loosened, and more. Adios to rainfall recordings.
Overlapping the same time frame, USDA’s Risk Management Agency (RMA), the overseer of federal crop insurance, was eyeballing anomalous numbers beyond historic averages on the High Plains. Crop insurance payouts were pinging off the charts, particularly in Baca County.
Right or wrong, deserved or unmerited, crop insurance fraud echoes over certain counties and regions around the nation. Tobacco deception in east Kentucky and North Carolina; prevent plant in the Mississippi Delta; citrus schemes in Florida; and other crops according to locale.
Baca County backroads harbor whispers of past insurance scams. But in 2017, there was no reliance on lore. Rather, the numbers were undeniable.
Multiple producers were abusing the federal Rainfall Index Annual Forage Insurance Plan and receiving millions of dollars in payouts. The program is based on rain amounts—not crop performance. Producers pick a two-month period (they can obtain multiple two-month slots), pay for insurance, and receive payments if precipitation falls below normal historic levels.
In 2017, according to USDA, Colorado producers claimed $8.52 million from the Annual Forage Insurance Plan via suspicious rain gauge readings. But roughly $3.54 went directly to a tiny, curious cabal in Baca County.
Enter Patrick Esch and Ed Dean Jagers ll—men with a lust for dust.
Perverted Alchemy
Esch and Jagers, of Springfield, Colo., raised cattle in Baca County and points beyond. Fingers in many pies. Airplanes. Vintage vehicles. Racehorses. Car dealerships. Land deals. Buy and sell. Shakers and movers.
“The details of this case were wild,” recalls Peter McNeilly, U.S. attorney for the District of Colorado and Marine Corps lieutenant colonel. “Wherever there’s a lot of government money being given out, people are going to be opportunistic to get it. This case was a whole cast of characters with creativity that surprised even career prosecutors.”
Although Esch was lead dog, Jagers fit the every-man mold: button-shirt, Wranglers, boots, and easy manner. Jagers was known to drop a high bid and rarely flinched on farmland.
True or false, past crop insurance stories floated around Esch and Jagers. (In 2006, Esch filed a $6 million claim for subsidies allegedly withheld unlawfully by the government. On Feb. 1, 2007, a federal judge dismissed the claim.) Yet, how did two well-heeled ranchers birth a scam to fake a drought? What was the idea’s genesis?
“We received different accounts of how it originated,” says Jasand Mock, Assistant U.S. Attorney, who led the prosecution of Esch and Jagers. “One story, attributable to Ed Dean Jagers, was that he heard local talk about a bird that had either built a nest in, or gotten inside, a weather station rain gauge, which caused some measurements to be lowered.”
The scheme was elaborate and far deeper than gauge manipulation. Prior to physically blocking rainfall collection, Esch and Jagers had to weave knowledge of the weather station locations, insurance system, coverage levels, productivity factors, payment intervals, acreage grids, and more. Additionally, they had to stay ahead of incoming storm patterns and accordingly send boots-on-the-ground to stations, whether in Colorado or Kansas.
Logistically, there were multiple moving parts requiring significant setup and preplanning. Esch and Jagers had at least two helpers. First, they roped in Jagers’ son, Trey Jagers, as an accomplice, and second, they brought in Mark Fox, Esch’s buck-wild farmhand. Bald and lanky at 6’3”, with a penchant for the fringe, and a frequent resident of several county jails, Fox carried multiple street monikers ranging from “Figgity” to “Floko” to “Loco Fox.” The aptly named Fox was a pin-pulled grenade, and his inclusion as confederate #4 would prove a damning mistake.
Divvying up road trip responsibilities in 2016-2017, the quartet of conspirators each hit different weather stations in Colorado and Kansas on a rain-clogging campaign. Jagers covered gauges with a disc blade; Esch plugged gauges with silicone, cut wires, or tipped the collecting bucket; Trey used cake pans; and Fox used a hammer and tap to knock holes in rain bowls.
“These weather stations are in a wide area, mainly rural, across two states, so it was quite easy for them to do this as far as walking up and vandalizing,” explains NWS chief meteorologist Stark. “Maybe they got their information on all these locations through a database or from others in the communities. To this day, I’m not certain how they found so many across hundreds of miles.”
Subsequent plea agreement documents provide a small window (Jan-March 2017) of typical activity. Extrapolated, the boys were busy as cranberry merchants:
• January 1, wires cut at weather station in Syracuse, Kansas.
• February 22, wires cut at weather station in Coolidge, Kansas.
• March 21, hole punched in brass collector in La Junta, Colorado.
• March 28, hole punched in rain gauge in Ordway, Colorado.
• March 28, funnel siliconed in Syracuse, Kansas.
• March 29, funnel siliconed in Coolidge, Kansas.
• March 29, cake pan placed over rain gauge in Springfield, Colorado.
“A single, fast-moving storm in Baca County, for example, could drop hundredths of an inch, or if it’s slow moving, you could get flooding at several inches per hour,” Stark explains. “They erased it all. They permanently changed the country’s quality-controlled data and climatological record. They stole the very data that is invaluable to their fellow farmers and researchers, all for personal gain.”
“We ended up with lost data in an extremely arid region, where that information is invaluable,” Stark continues. “That lost data then affects farmers, water planners, researchers, and so many others.”
Via a perverted alchemy, the quartet of conspirators turned turn rain into gold. Time to get paid.
Catch Me If You Can
Out of the gate, fat checks from insurance providers rolled in. Jagers’ bank deposits sparkled: February 6, 2017, $74,974; June 26, 2017, $104,647; June 26, 2017, $27,999. Esch dipped his beak even deeper: June 23, 2017, $76,197; June 23, 2017, $728,687; June 23, 2017, $527,028; June 28, 2017, $118,468; June 28, 2017, $869,356; June 28, 2017, $627,628.
According to prosecutors, Jagers, Esch, and Trey submitted false insurance claims totaling $3,131,066.65. Of the total, $1,036,625 was attributable to the actions of Jagers and Trey. The rest was due to the caulking and hole-punching of Esch and Fox.
Big money obscures reason. Esch and Jagers seemingly were convinced the feds would never catch on. Leaving behind cake pans and caulked funnels—in plain view—speaks volumes about Esch’s and Jagers’ brazen demeanor. Catch me if you can.
Periodic drought in the High Plains is within the realm of statistical expectancy, but anomalous transformation from arid to apocalyptic desert, is not. Unbeknownst to Esch and Jagers, their insurance claims caught the eye of RMA, and the discrepancies fell on the desk of USDA Office of Inspector General (OIG) special agent Shawn Dionida, a hellhound investigator willing to cold-nose a trail. Relentless.
Dionida has dealt with every shade of ag crime and beyond. “I’ve worked in multiple agencies, and overseen various types of criminal and civil investigations, and violent crime. You name it, I’ve seen it across the gamut.”
“We get data and look for anomalies,” continues Dionida, who provided prosecutors with an investigative roadmap. “When we find anomalies, we request more data, and we get other records to analyze. The data analytics spoke loud in this case. The rainfall and the insurance payouts were anomalous. Something was off.”
Ear to the ground, Dionida began pulling on threads. What unraveled? The Jerry Springer Show.
21 Million Simoleons
Almost from the get-go, volatile “Figgity” Fox threatened to kill the golden goose of insurance fraud.
Back in 2016, Fox had stolen an ATV from Esch. When Esch accused his farmhand of theft, Fox admitted guilt, but ironically dared Esch to call the law. Pot meet kettle.
Fox had grown increasingly upset by his take-home pay via the crop scheme. Frequently given kickback checks sometimes ranging from $500 to $1,500, Fox wanted more. Much more.
He knew where the proverbial bodies were buried. Fox later would contend the Jagers-Esch crop insurance conspiracy began in 2011, and he hinted at ag-related crimes dating back to 2001.
Essentially, he blackmailed Esch with tremendous leverage: Give me cash on the barrelhead when I ask or I’ll sing like a canary to the feds. By January 2019, bouncing between stints of incarceration in Bent County for a range of crimes including domestic violence and driving with a suspended license, Fox demanded Esch cover a $3,000 bail.
According to court documents, Fox’s “Girlfriend 1” told Esch, on behalf of Fox, to pay up, or else. On January 18, Fox’s bond was paid by Esch, who covered his tracks by drawing up affidavits for Fox and “Girlfriend 1” to sign, whereby the duo declared that Esch was innocent of weather station tampering—and anything they might say to the contrary in the future would be “lies and false and should not be believed.”
By May, Fox was back in the joint. And again, he needed bail money. Fox called Esch. On May 23, Esch paid a $10,000 bond and sprung Fox. Astoundingly, the very next day, on May 24, Fox thanked Esch by demanding $21 million in hush money. Esch refused.
An insane carousel was spinning. Only a year later, in August 2020, Fox returned to the slammer. He hollered at Esch: This time I need $46,000 in bail money. Pronto.
In the background, and soon to be in the foreground, Dionida and USDA were digging up details of the Jagers-Esch crop insurance conspiracy, and the feds were preparing to pounce.
Boss, Come Get Me Please
Writing from his cell, a desperate Fox, convinced he could outsmart both his criminal cronies and DOJ, put pedal to metal. On September 12, 2020, he penned a garbled extortion letter to Esch, snail-mailed by USPS:
“Tell Dean [Jagers] statute of limitation on fraud is date of discovery just in case he was holding his break. I’ll give only one warning shot because I really don’t’ wanna do it its so foolish. Pay me what owed and that’s it” . . . . “Boss, come get me please. If you want me to ease up on Dean I will. But his rich snobby ass needs a reality check and I’d love to hand it to his honky ass. Beggar. F*** that. Pay me or pay the feds back all that s*** Mr. Jagger.”
Three days later, impatience growing, Fox scrawled another menacing message to Esch.
“So I called Dept of Agriculture. . . . I said I was trying to get in touch with Mr. Jagger for an unpaid balance . . . I’m still holding to you and I[‘s] deal. 100%. But Dean [Jagers] ain’t s*** and it sounds like he’s about to catch a federal indictment on some real counts. . . . it’s only a matter of time before the FBI come digging at my door and I won’t be very favorable for Dean! He either called my bluff or said f*** off. . . . Boss I seriously hope you’re in Arizona and for the last 30 days you can’t been ignoring me too when all you gotta do is communicate. Because I know for a fact you’re getting all of [GIRLFRIEND, whose identity is known to the Grand Jury] text messages and calls. But you’re not responding. [GIRLFRIEND] drove to your house twice, her letter on your door was gone indicating you know. Dean said he told you I was in jail (2 weeks ago). I’m still on my word. But I find out you’re blowing me off no reason. . . . I won’t be nice. Humble Mark. Real s***. So feds know my name now and will come poking around soon. Think I won’t hesitate to bust Dean[‘s] ass in exchange for my own sentence? Beggar . . . $5,0000. I’ll get every bit of it. Btw, let him know how I feel about liars.”
Whether at wits’ end, or sincerely convinced Fox would behave rationally, Esch held off on bail assistance, instead meeting with Fox’s new liaison, “Girlfriend 2,” at a Lamar truck stop. On site, Esch “dictated additional affidavits” stating all claims about rain gauge tampering were false. Satisfied with the new affidavits, Esch then paid Fox’s $46,000 bail on October 5, 2020.
Yet, Fox continued to press for money, periodically chiming in with requests for cash, and Esch danced to Fox’s tune: $8,000 to Fox and “Girlfriend 2” at another truck stop in Lamar; $4,000 to “Girlfriend 2” at a Las Animas filling station; and $3,000 dropped into Fox’s pickup truck parked in Ordway.
However, Esch’s money drops were pointless: Fox had already gone to the feds and told his tale as an official whistleblower.
“Mark Fox, like most people who are very manipulative and good at deceit, mixed truth with falsehoods to advance his own agenda,” says Assistant U.S. Attorney Bryan Fields. “He had tampered with a lot of these rain gauges, and he’d done so at Esch’s behest. When he first came in to us, he portrayed himself as sort of a truth teller who was going to expose a criminal scheme. But little did we know, when we first spoke with him, he was extorting Esch, who was the ringleader. Fox really believed he was intellectually superior to law enforcement and his fellow coconspirators.”
Indeed. Fox was about to grab his writing pad and crank out more wild letters, positioning himself as savior of all.
Fruit of the Poisonous Tree
With the investigatory puzzle pieces taking shape, the feds began tightening the noose. Trey Jagers was first to fold. On April 21, 2021, after being approached by FBI and Department of Commerce agents, Trey agreed to cooperate, wear a wire, and potentially obtain damning audio from one of his co-conspirators. (Court documents do not specify if the coconspirator targeted was Esch or Jagers.)
But in the moment, Trey balked, giving away the ruse, as described by U.S. attorney Bryan Fields: “Trey Jagers did agree to initially cooperate with law enforcement. He agreed to wear a wire and have a conversation with one of the other co-conspirators. But in that conversation, you can tell, while he’s wearing the wire, that he’s tipping off who he’s talking to and telling them not to really talk. I suspect that had a lot to do with Trey not feeling comfortable directly implicating someone, at least at that point in time. It was hard to tell if Trey was physically gesturing as an alert about the wire, because we don’t have it on video, but he gave off some sort of signal as a warning.”
While the feds leaned on Trey, Fox stumbled back into incarceration. Par for the course, he grabbed a pencil and wrote Esch a letter. Irony aside, he promised to serve as a fixer in exchange for bail money.
“Because I have immunity…I can fix it. But not while in custody. I haven’t been subpoenaed to the grand jury yet. But my attorneys said I’ll be last to go Before indictments roll out. Because of my “Personal knowledge” and if I tried to recant now I’d be cited with perjury and [indecipherable] outside of discovery and they’d just use my proffer agreement. Boss, I can stop it. But I’m going to take a big hit on it, which I already have immunity and have to give? that up. I’m not sure if you tried bonding me out or not but if you do — DON’T DO IT IN YOUR NAME — I can stop and I can help you as I’m the only evidence they have. It cost you nothing to Bond me out. But I won’t be able to help from jail. . . . The feds are playing this jail closely. Also your phone and truck are HOT. I can fix this Boss, Believe in me. I already am in line to lose it all. I’m prepared for it. Real S***. Get me out. Let me show you “fruit of the poisonous tree.” Come get me Boss.”
Notwithstanding Fox’s rantings, the evidence against Esch and Jagers was overwhelming. They knew the jig was up. Facing the inevitable, the duo agreed to speak with the feds.
As for Fox, 46, he was in Benton County Jail (unrelated charges) when Esch and Jagers began their arraignment process. In July 2023, a month prior to Jager’s and Esch’s plea deals, Fox feigned illness, stuffed bundles of blankets in his cell bed to fake a body beneath the covers during video headcount, and climbed through ceiling panels, eventually escaping, along with three other inmates, through the roof of an adjacent bathroom.
Fox, as fugitive, triggered a fruitless nationwide manhunt by the U.S. Marshals Service, FBI, and Bent County Sheriff’s Office. Fox’s escape caused Esch’s family, fearful of reprisal, “to go into hiding,” according to Esch’s subsequent plea deal.
Several weeks after Fox went on the lam, the Otero County Sheriff’s Office received a call on August 12, regarding a corpse found in a farmhouse by a former resident of the home, 5 miles south of Rocky Ford. Part of a 109-acre property, the home had been vacant for several months.
Arriving on the scene, Otero County Deputy Dominic Mondragon found flies, foul odor, and a decayed male clad only in orange boxers—common prison issue.
“I noticed an abundance of flies along with an extraordinarily strong vinegar like smell that was making it hard to breath,” Mondragon described. “I then observed a deceased human body that was decaying and was turning black with maggots crawling on it.”
The body, later identified as Mark Fox, had been dead several weeks, according to a coroner’s estimate. Cause of death: undetermined. No more tales or jailhouse letters.
Who Else?
Trey signed a plea agreement in 2022 and served no jail time; Esch and Jagers signed plea agreements in 2023. Esch served two months in prison; Jagers served six months in prison. The pair was ordered to pay a combined $3.1 million in criminal restitution, and settled civil charges for $3.5 million. Total: $6.6 million.
A final surreal topping on the Esch-Jager layer cake. Upon Fox’s death, all judicial proceedings against him for extortion and other crimes ended. Due to his whistleblower status, Fox’s estate received $500,000 as part of the federal wrap-up.
“This case was simultaneously complex and simple,” McNeily concludes. “The scheme itself was rudimentary, but it gets much more complicated because of the human element and because of all the characters involved. They were committed to the scheme and making lots of money, and that made it difficult for the agents and the prosecutors to untangle the mess.”
Was anyone else, beyond the quartet, involved in stealing raindrops? Was anyone else in the know?
The Esch-Jagers civil settlement, completed in February 2024, hints at an answer. Two sentences, almost identical, are relevant. First, in Esch’s section: “The co-conspirators’ tampering scheme also affected indemnity payments for rainfall index policies held by other individuals and entities affiliated with Esch that Esch knew participated in the rainfall index crop insurance program.”
Second, in Jagers’ section: “The co-conspirator’s tampering scheme also affected indemnity payments for rainfall index policies held by other individuals and entities affiliated with Jagers that Jagers knew participated in the rainfall index crop insurance program.”
In the end, regardless of how many got-aways were involved, the Esch-Jagers heist was about greed and personal gain—skimmed off the backs of fellow farmers and U.S. taxpayers.
For more from Chris Bennett (@ChrisBennettMS or cbennett@farmjournal.com or 662-592-1106), see:
Stealing the Farm: China Continues Raid of US Agriculture by Theft and Agroterror
Corn and Cocaine: Roger Reaves and the Most Incredible Farm Story Never Told
How the Deep State Tried, and Failed, to Crush an American Farmer
Game of Horns: Iowa Poacher’s Antler Addiction Leads to Historic Bust
Ghost Cattle: $650M Ponzi Rocks Livestock Industry, Money Still Missing
Georgia Watermelon Heist Explodes into Epic Night of Pandemonium
Sisters of Farm Fraud: How 4 Siblings Fleeced USDA for $10M
When Conservation Backfires: Landowner Defeats Feds in Mindboggling Private Property Case
Cold-Busted: Frozen Deer Decoy Nabs Poachers and Cocaine in Spectacular Sting
Sticky Fingers: USDA Fraudster Steals $200M in Stunning Scam
