Dear CBS 60 minutes:

Our story is not a short story. In fact, it’s somewhat long and has many complex details. I’m no writer, however, we believe our story should be and needs to be told. Our story is relevant to the state of the union for it’s political, governmental, judicial, constitutional, and economic implications, and should be to the passage of any new farm bill. As I said, this is not a short story but one with many details somewhat complex and therefore, I will attempt to tell just the major facts and trust if our story is of interest we can provide all the details and evidence you would like.

Our story tells how Dodd-Frank, SBA, FSA, and USDA culminated circumstances to devastate the life savings of a couple who worked and saved for 20 years. How their efforts to begin a small business to provide jobs and to produce products have been destroyed by government actions. How during this journey they met with significant negligence, fraud, perjury, obstruction of justice, and multiple acts of what appears to be, and remain to be proven acts, of conspiracy to defraud by Federal and State agencies. How this journey lead to the discovery that the FSA has for decades been alleged to have discriminated against Blacks, Whites, Hispanics, Indians, and Women. That factually Congress has appropriated billions for settlement of these allegations over the decades. How now this organization is believed to be running a fraudulent legal risk mitigation effort under the guise of an administrative process abrogating the constitutional, and civil rights of the individuals they’re supposed to serve while allowing government employees to commit criminal acts and avoid accountability or responsibility for negligent and incompetent mismanagement of the people’s resources and they do so hiding behind and abusing governmental and,” individually qualified,” sovereign immunity. This enterprise is usurping the judicial system and whether they do so with or without judicial consent is in question. These findings have led this couple to file charges in Federal district court against Federal and State employees and Agencies for racketeering under the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organization Act. The case is on the Docket Federal District Court of Virginia Western District Case # 4:2013-CV- 00054 JLK Julian Et al Vs. Rigney Et al.

My wife and I decided in our late forties having just had our first and only serendipitous child to give up our corporate city jobs in banking and pursue life in a rural community. In 2007 we bought 23 acres just below the Blue Ridge Parkway and began developing it with intentions of starting a farm winery operation with rental cabins. We intended for our mothers to live with us and designed the main home with them in mind. Longer term we envisioned their quarters becoming a rental suite and beyond a space for us in our old age.

We had mortgage financing approved in 2007 but, because of delays in development by local government officials, a multitude of local labor factors, and a slow architect, the loan commitment expired in 2008. At the time the lending environment was deteriorating and some funding options fell through, true, we were able to secure another commitment but, not on terms, we found agreeable. We continued to finance our efforts out of pocket and looked to the SBA for some guidance and assistance.

Our initial meeting with the SBA left us discouraged with little guidance or assistance offered. Quite frankly we found the local SBA staff lacking in any knowledge or skills to offer which could be of assistance. This was a typical government pamphlet pushing office staffed with individuals unequipped to provide the services the agency boasted.

We gave new life to the old apple orchard on the property and in reporting crop information to the USDA discovered the FSA and their farm loan programs. We were not eligible for these farm loan programs because of a requirement for 3 years of farming experience.

Even with the banking industry in collapse, our own fortunes declined from bank stock holdings accumulated over years in the industry plus the turmoil in the stock market we weathered through the financial turmoil of 2008 and 2009 taking significant losses. We believed the economy would eventually turn and we continued funding our development efforts from our own financial resources. We believed at the time we would always be able to get an asset-backed loan on our real estate or mortgage the farm to complete our development plan.

From 2009 – 2012 we farmed the land built on the main house, and provided local employment and economic stimulus to a rural community. The farming suffered losses every year with the help of hail storms and ineligibility for crop insurance.  These losses we viewed as an investment in offsetting future profits. We had not started this to be in the apple orchard business but, with a plan to become producers of apple wine, hard apple cider, viniferous grape varietal wines, and a blend of the two.

In April of 2012, we realized to continue our operations and complete the development we would need financing. This entire effort had taken way too long, too many years, primarily because of local government officials and local labor issues. The fact is we came to see the environment as resistant to change and operating like a racketeering operation. We first approached multiple banks, farm mortgage lenders, and other mortgage lending sources. Every institution showed little or no interest in assisting us in any way. With over half a million invested in the real estate, equipment, and construction they had no interest in lending to us to complete our construction or develop our business. Every mortgage lender told us the same thing in 2011 the implementation of Dodd Frank Reg B prevented them from lending on our assets without an income to support the loan. Stated Income Evidence.

How were we supposed to manage the crews, provide the construction labor and management to complete the construction, manage and care for the farm operations, and hold down a full-time job?  We had invested our life savings in this real estate project, 5 years of our own labor and efforts to develop this property with the intention to start a small farm winery operation and now congress had enacted laws preventing us from leveraging our real estate assets to start and work for our own business.

Construction of our main residence was not to a point we could just stop. The 2012 apple crop was the first we had to survive spring hail storms and our first hope at being able to have a marketable crop that would provide the needed records to get crop insurance going forward. We continued our construction efforts and caring for the crop while we worked on a business plan and looked for ways to find financing.

In June of 2012, I happened into the local FSA office and saw the advertisements for Farm loan assistance. I contacted the regional FSA office for a beginning farmer farm loan application. When I read through the information It appeared from the requirements and the Farm Loan guide we should not have any issues with obtaining beginning farmers; farm loan. FSA was there to assist and promote beginning farmers who could not find credit elsewhere to develop their operations and assists them in getting to commercial credit viability. Given the requirements, I knew I did not have time then to prepare the information required and I wanted to get my 2012 crop harvested and sold before completing the application.  When I went to file the papers in my filing cabinet I discovered, I had requested and received an application in 2009.

We worked diligently through the summer and fall to care for, harvest, and market the crop and were putting in long days attempting to complete the framing of the 5200-square foot house and get it all under the roof before fall rains. We had been working for years on preparing the orchard for the planting of grapes and had it well positioned going into fall.

We continued looking for financing options and began working on a formal business plan we could present for SBA lending. We felt rather confident about our situation because of what we’d learned about the FSA loan program and worked through many of the application requirements. On the SBA website while researching SBA lending we found that given our operation involved a farm SBA would expect us to go through FSA first and so we focused on a beginning farmer, farm ownership loan.

On October 10, 2012, I met with a representative, on his recommendation, from FSA to review our farming operations. I provided him that afternoon with an application complete with the required financial information as of September 30, 2012. He told me during our discussions he would have to arrange for an appraiser to appraise the property and provide an after-capital improvement valuation.

On or about October 12, 2012, I received a confirmation letter from FSA acknowledging my application.  On or about October 23, 2012, I received a letter from FSA requesting further information. I phoned FSA on October 30, 2012, regarding 2 items on the request which were in the possession of the local FSA office. (Note Evidence UN Agenda 21) I sent the requested information in time to make the November 8, 2012, deadline. On November 13, 2012, I received a letter from FSA dated November 9, 2012, however, the envelope struck us as very strange because the postmark was October 22, 2012. The document was the second notice of incomplete application and this time requested some information we thought had been provided and some information that was not requested on the first listing of missing items. I called the FSA office that day but did not get an answer. I was very upset they had not asked for this information previously and the letter indicated the application would be dropped without any appeal option unless the information was received by November 19, 2013, this gave me just four days to retrieve the financial information and get it in the mail to meet the deadline. Were they then, going to find some other information they had to have?

I sent the requested information with tracking to ensure it was in the office by the required date. On November 21, 2013, the day before Thanksgiving  FSA created and mailed a confirmation letter indicating our application was complete. This struck us as odd again we knew information we should have been asked to provide had not been requested. November 28,2012 one week after sending a completion confirmation FSA prepared and sent a Declination letter denying our loan application. The agency had never obtained a credit report, never done an appraisal, and never asked a single question about the application. The letter was negligently, prejudicially, and fraudulently, prepared with numerous fraudulent statements as well as multiple misrepresentations of fact and numerous factual inaccuracies. The letter was sent to us by certified mail and therefore by our estimation constituted mail fraud by an agency of the US Government.

The declination letter provided us with three options for opposing the decision.  A request for reconsideration, mediation, and administrative appeal. Given our experience with FSA up to that point, we choose mediation.

On December 10, 2012, we sent a request for mediation to the Virginia State University Agricultural Mediation Program. Lacking knowledge, experience, or understanding that our loan request had just taken a turn into a legal battle we provided the mediation program with our objections to the denial and pointed out the inaccurate and fraudulent nature of the denial letter.

From December 10, 2012, until January 7, 2013, we waited on a response from the program. Having received no response we contacted the Mediation Program Director at the University. We were given assurance our request had been received and that a mediation would be scheduled soon.

On January 24, 2013, having not been contacted a single time by the University Mediation Program, We took issue with the handling of our request with FSA in Washington. We learned then that the University was no longer certified to perform mediation for the USDA.

After a flurry of communications and issues, we had mediation scheduled by the North Carolina Agricultural Mediation Program. We requested FSA provide a copy of the credit report used in evaluating our loan application since we had paid a fee for them to acquire it.  On February 8, 2013, 50 days after creating the declination letter, FSA pulled a current credit report and presented it to us as the credit report used in our credit assessment. FSA delayed the mediation until February 27, 2013, now 3 months after declining our application.

Mediation was, as predicted by multiple advisers a waste of time, and we requested an administrative appeal promptly after the conclusion of mediation.

NAD scheduled a pre-hearing on March 19, 2013, one day prior to the due date set by the division for briefs to be delivered to the hearing officer. They railroaded pertinent rulings attempted on multiple grounds to intimidate us and ultimately denied us the due process in the presentation of our case. We were told an administrative appeal was not the forum for allegations of prejudice, negligence, fraud, or incompetence. They insisted we could only discuss the issues they wanted to be maintained.

In the pre-hearing and in briefs filed by FSA we were repeatedly badgered with false allegations claiming we made a request regarding our loan which we had never made. We refuted these allegations from the very beginning and consistently provided documentation that showed the allegations were false.

During the hearing, scheduled by NAD for April 17, 2013, 5 months after declination and one day prior to the statutory deadline an FSA employee testified under oath, he had conversations with us in which we made requests regarding our loan which we had never made. More interesting is before mediation which was after receipt of the declination we had never met this individual. Furthermore, The declination letter itself provided proof that these statements were false. Frankly, this individual, a Government employee of FSA was committing perjury and obstruction of justice in a formal Government hearing. While this was the only false testimony specifically about us, it was not the only incidence by FSA of perjury and false testimony during the hearing.

While the Federal court may disagree we found the NAD Hearing findings of May 16, 2013, to be nothing short of an attempt to cover up and avoid responsibility, and accountability, for multiple acts of negligence, fraud, and incompetence born from the negligent administration of a Government agency.   We further felt the decision had completely ignored all the supporting arguments we made and made no effort to provide any factual findings to support their decision. Additionally, the findings intentionally misrepresent the arguments made in our briefs and hearing.

We requested a Director review of the Administrative decision after preparing our argument on June 17, 2013, just within the deadline. We documented the many issues we had met with throughout the process. We provided further arguments to support our case and again found NADS decisions had completely ignored all the supporting arguments made and made no effort to provide any factual finding to support their decision. Furthermore, the Directors review stated we made arguments we had not made and were factually false! Again, the findings intentionally misrepresented the arguments made in our briefs and hearing.

On September 16, 2013, after some research, as the director’s review indicated we had exhausted our administrative appeal options and provided us no further appeal options, we discovered we had a right to Judicial review. Furthermore, we found judicial review could be incorporated with any other city of criminal action and we filed suit in federal district court against FSA, USDA, NAD, and the Virginia University State Agricultural Mediation Program director for racketeering. We believe that the Fraud, Mail fraud, perjury, and obstruction of justice met with, support the required precedence for such a suit. That the Federal and State employees involved were so negligent, fraudulent, and criminal as to have been derelict in their duties to warrant the Federal courts denying pleas for protection under sovereign Immunity.

We contend the USDA is running a risk mitigation program to protect the finances of the enterprise at the expense of the statutory, constitutional, and civil rights of individuals.  That factually the organization is perpetrating, administering, and running a racketeering operation. A fraudulent administrative process abrogates constitutional, and civil rights while allowing government employees to commit criminal acts and avoid accountability or responsibility for negligent and incompetent mismanagement of the people’s resources, and they do so by hiding behind and abusing governmental and,” individual qualified,” sovereign immunity. That they intentionally usurp the judicial system and are therefore guilty of tyranny and oppression. Furthermore, the processes they are manipulating are equivalent to torture, terrorism, and psychological rape.

While we’re happy to share extensive details and evidence related to specifics in our case. We would suggest the following articles as just a few of the many to reference in support of our story.

http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/nrcs141p2_015583.pdf

http://deltafarmpress.com/white-farmers-suing-usdafsa

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113730694

http://seattletimes.com/text/2017876971.html

http://www.marshacoleman-adebayo.com/women-whistle.html

http://www.ebony.com/black-listed/news-views/alabama-black-farmers-sue-usda-981#axzz2dehBlOEK

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/04/09/188083/usda-hopes-to-settle-discrimination.html

Its time Congress abrogated these agencies off of the people’s purses permanently!