LOGAN – A Kansas man admitted to a fraud charge last week of devising a scheme to steal from Montana and Wyoming ranchers who were seeking to buy hay to feed their livestock during the drought of 2021.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Jory D. Parks, 43, Logan, Kansas, was arraigned and pleaded guilty to wire fraud. Parks faces a maximum of 20 years in prison, a $250,000 fine and three years of supervised release. A sentencing date has not yet been set.
Prosecutors noted in court documents that Parks advertised on Facebook during the summer of 2021 that he was selling large amounts of hay and was willing to deliver to Montana and Wyoming.
Prosecutors said Parks, operating as Heart Cross Ranch, LLC, received money from customers in exchange for promises to deliver hay. Instead, Parks used the money for unrelated business and personal expenses and made false promises about what he would deliver and the scale and success of his business.
In September 2021, when Parks was trying to convince a prospective customer that he had a successful business selling high-quality hay, he told the victim that he had sold all his hay the previous year to a known horse racing facility in Nebraska to feed racehorses. After interviewing the CEO of the facility and analyzing Parks’ financials, the FBI determined that Parks’ statements were false.
In Montana, a ranching business owned by a couple in Ingomar responded to one of Parks’ Facebook ads in which he claimed to be selling hay cheaper than they had been able to find. The couple signed a contract with Parks to buy 190 tons of hay from Parks for $43,300 and mailed half of the amount, $21,650, as a down payment to Heart Cross Ranch.
Parks deposited the check into his business account in a bank in Colorado. Three weeks later, Parks delivered the couple’s first shipment of 23 tons of the 190 tons they had purchased but never delivered the additional hay or repaid the remainder of the down payment, prosecutors said.
