CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (KCRG) – A former farmer was sentenced to six months in federal prison after pleading guilty to making a false statement to a financial institution.
Mashon Van Mill, 41, from Shell Rock, was sentenced on Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Iowa. He pleaded guilty on October 15, 2025.
In the plea agreement, Van Mill said he had lied to a bank he had been with for two years. He applied to a $1 million line of credit, and claimed for collateral that he had over $2 million worth of corn in storage when he did not.
The bank contacted the grain storage company Van Mill said was storing the corn and found that he did not have any corn there, according to the court.
By the time this was discovered, the bank had loaned over $870,000 to Van Mill, who had defaulted on his payments.
District Court Chief Judge C.J. Williams sentenced Van Mill and ordered him to pay the bank back $873,119. He’ll serve five years of supervised release following his six-month sentence.
As of the sentencing, the bank recovered over $258,000 from Van Mill’s garnished wages and sold property.
Van Mill was released on bond and is set to surrender to the U.S. Marshals Service on April 27, according to the court.
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