Stamp Farms Owner Michael Stamp Withdraws Guilty Plea

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Trial will start in October for former Stamp Farms owner Michael Stamp. MLive reports he has withdrawn his guilty plea from April 2019 to charges of conspiracy to commit crop insurance fraud and conspiracy to commit bank fraud. The plea was pulled after a federal judge rejected the sentencing agreement for Stamp on the day the Decatur farm owner was scheduled to be sentenced in late January to no more than five years in prison.

U.S. District Judge Paul Maloney says Stamp should spend between 12-and-a-half and 15 years in prison for “extensive fraud” and taking several steps to recruit others into the scheme. The judge says banks and the federal government were swindled out of $20 million by Stamp. No ruling has been made on the plea agreement by his wife, Melissa, who has so far served 20 months for a 2015 bankruptcy fraud case, and she’s hoping the federal government will accept her plea deal from April.