Once upon a crime, four sticky-fingered sisters, all in their seventies, pulled a surreal $10 million fraud by filing almost 200 false claims of prejudice against USDA.
The geriatric quartet cranked a drive-by discrimination operation for 10 years, steering a chain of applicants to cash settlements via claims of race and gender bias, all while taking a bite from each piece of the pie.
In league with almost 200 fake farmers, a greedy attorney, a Jiffy Tax fixer, a crooked notary, and a jaw-dropping countersuit, the sibling foursome racked up 115 counts of mail fraud, money laundering, tax evasion, and conspiracy to defraud the IRS.
Grandmother grifters Lynda Charles, Rosie Bryant, Delois Bryant and Brenda Sherpell executed a heist that rivals the most audacious scams on agriculture record. Older the violin, sweeter the fraud.
Tapping the Till
Raised in rice country—central Arkansas’ Lonoke County, roughly 45 miles southeast of Little Rock—siblings Lynda Charles, Rosie Bryant, Delois Bryant, and Brenda Sherpell (hereafter, the Bryant sisters) took a shot at farm-related entrepreneurship in 2008. However, their ag venture came with a heavy wink, as described in a subsequent indictment:
Beginning in or about June 2008, and continuing through in or about November 2017, in the Eastern District of Arkansas, and elsewhere, the defendants … knowingly and intentionally devised and participated in a scheme to defraud the United States of America by depriving it of property.
Rubbing elbows with the faithful at church gatherings, the Bryant sisters devised a means to repeatedly steal from USDA. Theft in plain sight.
And which specific USDA till did the Bryant sisters tap? Billions of dollars flushed by a rising tide of discrimination lawsuits resulting in the largest combined civil rights settlement in U.S. history.
The Golden Girls
In 1997, Timothy Pigford, an African-American corn and soybean farmer in North Carolina, along with 22,000 other producers, sued USDA, alleging prolonged racial discrimination during loan processing and a failure to investigate related complaints from 1983 to 1997. The class action lawsuit, Pigford v. Glickman (aka Pigford l), was settled in 1999: Roughly 70% of applicants were approved and received a total settlement of $1-plus billion in cash, tax payments, and debt cancellation.
Pigford l triggered an avalanche of similar suits alleging USDA discrimination. In 1999, Keepseagle v. Vilsack (4,300 claimants) was launched by Native American farmers. In 2000, Garcia v. Vilsack was filed with allegations from 50,000 Hispanic farmers. Also in 2000, Love v. Vilsack featured 53,000 female farmers. All the while, an additional 68,000 African American farmers were packaged in Pigford ll, contending they were given an inadequate application deadline in Pigford l.
Secretary of Agriculture Thomas Vilsack settled the suits on a massive cost scale. Each Pigford case, over $1 billion; Keepseagle, $760 million; Garcia and Love, settled simultaneously, approximately $1.3 billion.
Curiously, despite USDA’s central role in the biggest government race and sex discrimination payout on record—purportedly carried out against 200,000 Native Americans, Hispanics, African Americans, and women—there were no departmental repercussions. The settlement payout totals necessitated a substantial amount of USDA employment involvement. However, no USDA officials or workers reportedly were reprimanded, demoted, or fired.
Amid the cascade of litigation, the Bryant sisters hatched a grift to score beaucoup settlement money by recruiting an assembly line of claimants. Find some farmers, line’em up, move’em along with fake documents, get a percentage from each claimant, and fudge the IRS numbers for bonus bucks.
Were the Bryant sisters recruiting actual farmers? No. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of Arkansas, “the claimants had not suffered discrimination and, in most cases, had not even attempted to farm.”
Crooked, but highly motivated, the four golden girls got busy. There were plums to be picked.
Pulling Levers
USDA lumped the various legal lawsuits into two separate claims categories: Black Farmers Discrimination Litigation (BFDL) and Hispanic and Women Farmers and Ranchers (HWFR). (Native American farmer settlements were separate.)
Boiled down, claimants in BFDL or HWFR could obtain $62,500 and potential debt cancellation. (The $62,500 was broken into an initial lump of $50,000, and a separate $12,500 transferred directly to the IRS for tax withholding.) Attorneys assisting claimants could receive a maximum fee of $1,500 per client.
Applicants for settlement money had to submit a class action claim form describing their rejections from USDA programs or economic losses. The paperwork could be submitted by a representative for anyone deceased, or for anyone deficient in mental or physical condition. HWFR applicants had added leeway and could submit a notarized witness statement “from someone who witnessed the alleged incident.”
After completion, all forms were submitted to Epiq, a third-party compliance company in Portland, Ore., that reviewed claims and doled out payment.
Lynda Charles, Rosie Bryant, Delois Bryant, and Brenda Sherpell gamed the system. They successfully pulled the levers on an astonishing 192 claims before getting pinched.
Cooking the Books
The Bryant sisters needed scores of fake farmers, i.e., recruits who would lie and apply for payments via the BFDL or HWFR lawsuit settlements. Starting in June 2008, the sisters began casting a net, offering claimants a path to $62,500 in USDA settlement money, in return for a share of the loot—typically ranging from $10,000-$25,000. The Bryants did the legwork; the fake farmers signed the docs; and everyone got paid.
Dax Roberson, Special Agent in Charge with USDA’s Office of Inspector General, described the setup:
“We found out the sisters approached people at church gatherings, advising attendees that they were eligible for black farmers litigation settlements, and stated they could apply for financial relief if their ancestors had ever been discriminated against…”
“The sisters provided attendees with a blank application signature page and asked them to sign it,” Roberson added. “But the attendees did not complete, or in most cases, even see the applications. The sisters attached the signature pages to fraudulent applications and submitted them to USDA.”
Beyond the Bryant sisters, the scam required key players, particularly a notary to rubber-stamp all paperwork and sworn affidavits submitted by recruits. Enter Niki Charles, a notary public and daughter of Lynda Charles. Keep it in the family.
Niki Charles notarized and verified fictitious witness testimony regarding discrimination, yet “none of the statements were signed in her presence by the witness purporting to verify the acts of discrimination referenced in the claim,” according to her subsequent plea agreement.
In addition to Niki Charles, who pocketed at least $90,688 with her notary stamp, a lawyer was needed to grease the skids. Up stepped long-time Little Rock attorney Everett Martindale.
Representing almost all the Bryant’s BFDL and HWFR recruits, he signed and affirmed the veracity of the claim forms. In truth, according to his plea, “Martindale did not investigate any claim or have any evidence to substantiate the statements reported in the claim.”
The BFDL and HWFR claim forms were mailed from Little Rock to Epiq in Oregon. Once approved for payment, BFDL and HWFR checks were issued to Martindale by Epiq. He was temporary bagman.
Per his plea: Martindale deposited the BFDL checks into his law firm trust account and issued a check from his trust account to the claimant for the claim. Martindale withheld his attorney fee from the settlement checks and issued the claimant a check for the claim minus the attorney fees. For the HWFR claimants, the checks were issued in the name of the claimant alone. When Martindale received the claimant’s checks from Epiq, he provided the checks to one or more of the other defendants rather than to the claimant. For the HWFR claims, Everett Martindale had an agreement with Lynda Charles, Rosie Bryant, Delois Bryant, and Brenda Sherpell to split the attorney fee equally, with each of these defendants receiving one-fifth of the fee. Martindale received at least $51,000 from his involvement with the scheme.
In 2013, already vacuuming hundreds of thousands of dollars, the Bryant sisters doubled down by juicing Jerry Green, owner of Jiffy Tax, into the scam. In return for $550 per person, Green cooked the books on 82 tax returns that “contained false items totaling $4,615,009.”
With the players—fake farmers, notary, attorney, and accountant—pulling on the rope in unison, the Bryant sisters captured millions in loot. However, the take wasn’t enough to satisfy growing greed.
In 2015, incensed after Epiq denied some of their false settlement claims, the sisters dropped a how-dare-you bomb: They sued USDA for civil rights violations and demanded a jury trial.
Pile of Coin
Brazenly, on June 8, 2015, the Bryants sued the very government entity they were stealing from—USDA. The lawsuit accused USDA Secretary Thomas Vilsack and his claims administrators of depriving the Bryants of constitutional rights by rejecting some of their settlement claims.
Tacking on almost 200 other purported farmers in their complaint, the Bryants sought $62,500 in compensatory damages for all, beyond “costs, fees, and interest.” Shooting for the moon, they also asked for punitive damages “in whatever amount determined by this court.”
Ironically, while suing Vilsack and USDA, the four siblings were living large, spending cash later traced to their ongoing fraud: Rosie Bryant, in 2014, purchased a 3,278-sq. ft., three-bedroom, $610,000 home in Colleyville, Texas. Lynda Charles and Delois Bryant bought adjoining lots for $97,400 and $87,400 at the Rockwater Village development in North Little Rock in 2015. Lynda Charles bought a $58,959 Chevrolet Express van in 2016. Also, in 2016, Delois Bryant bought a $113,271 Mercedes-Benz G550.
Their lawsuit was dismissed. Their fraud continued to surge. On Nov. 5, 2015, the Bryants filed for an Arkansas business license as “Jovi Women and Hispanic Litigation,” a front for the settlement swindle. By 2017, their pile of coin was $10 million—and the gleam caught the eye of USDA and IRS.
Pied Pipers
In 2019, following a USDA Office of Inspector General investigation, the Bryant sisters, notary Niki Charles, attorney Martindale, and tax preparer Green, were indicted (115 total counts) in the U.S. District Court Eastern District of Arkansas. Each sister was charged with eight counts of mail fraud, one count of conspiracy to defraud, and 82 counts of false tax returns. Three of the sisters also were charged with 12 counts of tax evasion and multiple counts of money laundering. Niki Charles and Martindale were hit with eight counts of mail fraud. Green received a conspiracy charge. (Significantly, prosecutors chose to only pursue charges for crimes committed after 2012.)
Facing the state’s potential to call over 200 witnesses at trial, Green, the bookkeeper, was the first to roll, copping a plea in January 2021. The other dominoes fell fast. After initially pleading not guilty, all four Bryant sisters admitted guilt and signed plea agreements on July 6, 2022. Niki Charles followed a month later, on Aug. 2, signing a plea. Two days later, Aug. 4, 2022, Martindale followed suit, the last to sign a plea bargain.
The sisters’ total bag? Lynda Charles stole at least $2,176,000; Rosie Bryant stole at least $2,176,000. Delois Bryant stole at least $2,176,000. Brenda Sherpell stole at least $1,700,000.
In June 2023, the ring was sentenced. Niki Charles, 50, got 16 months in the pen. Martindale, 76, of Little Rock, received one year and a day behind bars. Likewise, Green, 42, got a year and a day in prison.
Lynda Charles, 73, Rosie Bryant, 75, Delois Bryant, 76, and Brenda Sherpell, 73, each were sentenced to two years in federal prison, and ordered to pay $9-plus million in restitution. All told, the sisters faked 192 claims, “resulting in a loss of over $11.5 million.”
Pied pipers of farm theft.
For more from Chris Bennett (@ChrisBennettMS or cbennett@farmjournal.com or 662-592-1106), see:
Corn and Cocaine: Roger Reaves and the Most Incredible Farm Story Never Told
