A. COURTNEY COX, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY

Nine Executive Drive, Fairview Heights, Illinois 62208, Telephone (618) 628-3700

For Immediate Release August 17, 2009

LOUISVILLE MAN SENTENCED FOR DEFRAUDING EMPLOYER AND INVESTORS

A. Courtney Cox, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois, announced today that on August 17, 2009, ERIC L. LEWIS, age 33, of Louisville, Illinois was sentenced to 60 months in the Federal Bureau of Prisons, followed by three years of supervised release. The sentence followed his earlier pleas to mail fraud and money laundering arising from a scheme involving the illegal sales of corn and soybean sales. LEWIS was also ordered to pay restitution totaling $7,586,991.

LEWIS pled guilty on May 18, 2009. The indictment alleged that LEWIS misused his position as a District Sales Manager with Crow’s Hybrid Corn Company to engage in a series of transactions that were intended to benefit and enrich himself in violation of his employer’s established policies for a period of approximately five years.

The charges allege that LEWIS secretly entered into seed contracts with investors, where LEWIS manipulated sales prices in order to personally profit from the sale of the seed, while also increasing his sales volume, thereby increasing his commissions and performance bonuses. Lewis misapplied approximately $229,000 of seed payment money to pay for the construction of his personal residence in Louisville, Illinois.

Evidence presented to the Court established that LEWIS concealed the scheme by offering additional seed for sale at below-market prices to customers in order to generate money from new orders that were misapplied to bring old accounts current. The scheme resulted in $4,247,391.00 of seed shipments to customers for which Crow’s Hybrid Corn Company was not paid. The scheme also resulted in investors losing $3,339,600.00 that was invested in corn and soybean seed but was misapplied to other customer accounts to conceal the scheme to defraud.

The investigation was conducted by the Internal Revenue Service and the United States Postal Inspection Service. The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Steven D. Weinhoeft.