Amish Corn Ring Busted Selling Georgia Corn as “Local”
May 18, 2015Lighthouse Keeper
Investigators from the Pennsylvania State Police and the PA Department of Agriculture today announced the disruption of one of the largest corn rings in Central PA history. As a result of a 3-year and $2Million investigation, agents have arrested five area Amish for peddling Georgia corn as “Local Lancaster Corn”, and shutting down five road-side corn shacks.
Authorities grew suspicious when seeing signs toting “LOCAL CORN” as early as June and corn crops still being under 1′ in height. The big break in the case came quite by accident when Mervin Stoltzfus of Bird-In-Hand was talking to his buddies at Your Place on Lincoln Highway East one Sunday where an off duty PA State Trooper was having lunch. Trooper Barry McCaulkener of Troop J overheard one Amishman boasting how “we just pay a fella to bring some corn back from the Philly Terminal Market and we give it to the kids to sell at the end of the driveway. The tourists love that shit. They’ll pay us $1 more per dozen for the same crap that is sitting at Giant”.
Investigators wanted to also charge two of the accused with selling “home made whoopie pies” that were purchased at the Bird-in-Hand Bakery but District Justice Ima P. Ness threw the charges out as they were still made by Mennonites. She was quoted as saying, “Amish, Mennonite. Iceberg, Goldberg. What’s the difference? One of them sunk the Titanic.”
http://peopleoflancaster.com/amish-c...corn-as-local/