From the Los Angeles Times:

A federal jury convicted Stockton farmer Gregory P. Torlai Jr. of deceiving the government by filing fraudulent insurance claims to try to collect $400,000 from a taxpayer-backed insurance program set up to help farmers survive when nature destroys crops.

Torlai, 49, was found guilty in Sacramento on all 16 counts of making false statements in a scheme to trick three private insurance companies and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Federal Crop Insurance Corp., which runs the federal crop insurance program.

The jury found Thursday that Torlai had lied about how many seeds he'd bought and the number of acres of wheat, safflower and other crops he'd planted in Lassen, San Joaquin and Contra Costa counties.

Stockton farmer convicted of crop insurance fraud

For additional coverage of the fraud case:

Farm scams bilk millions from insurers, taxpayers