A federal jury in Fort Worth convicted two brothers in a case involving a cattle investment scheme that collected more than $240 million from over 2,200 victims and a separate plot to divert company money into personal purchases, federal prosecutors announced on November 11.
Jurors convicted Joshua Robert Link and Jason Allen Link on November 10 after a six-day trial before U.S. District Judge Mark T. Pittman. The brothers face sentencing on March 4, 2027, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas.
Joshua Link, co-owner and executive director of Fort Worth-based Agridime LLC, received guilty verdicts on two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, two counts of wire fraud and two counts of money laundering. Jason Link, an Agridime livestock broker who owned Shady Brook Ranch LLC, received guilty verdicts on one conspiracy count, two wire fraud counts and two money laundering counts.
“These defendants preyed directly on Main Street Americans who believed they were investing in cattle contracts,” U.S. Attorney Ryan Raybould said in the release.
Cattle contracts and investor money
Agridime offered customers the chance to buy an individual steer or heifer for $2,000, promising to purchase, care for, and process that animal before selling its meat, prosecutors said.
Instead, the company used purchaser funds to cover operating costs, loan payments and obligations to earlier cattle buyers. Prosecutors said the scheme also involved inflated cattle inventories to obtain financing and payments for excessive salaries and broker commissions.
From January 2021 through December 2023, Agridime collected more than $240 million through fraudulent representations, according to the release. That figure describes money collected, rather than a final court-ordered restitution amount.
Prosecutors said Joshua Link and Tia Makenzie Link received more than $2.7 million in salaries and commissions during 2022 and 2023, while operations director Jed Hansel Wood received more than $2.4 million.
As The Dallas Express previously reported, federal authorities announced an indictment in February in the Agridime cattle-contract case. That announcement put the amount collected at more than $220 million; prosecutors now cite more than $240 million.
False bills funded personal purchases
The jury also found that the brothers conspired to defraud Agridime and its owners through false requests for cattle feed and yardage payments, prosecutors said.
Between November 2021 and January 2024, the brothers caused Agridime to pay more than $2.7 million to a business Jason Link controlled for services it had not provided. Another company had already supplied the feed and received payment, according to the release.
Prosecutors traced proceeds to $1,498,275 in construction payments for a five-bedroom, four-bathroom Kansas “barndominium” for the brothers’ recreational use, a $24,838 purchase of a 2006 Hummer H2, and additional spending on solar installations and plumbing supplies.
Four other defendants pleaded guilty before trial: Wood, to a wire fraud conspiracy count on March 25; Tia Link, Agridime’s marketing director, to money laundering on June 17; cattle broker Taylor Orris Bang, to wire fraud conspiracy on September 9; and financial controller Royana Jane Thomas, to wire fraud conspiracy on November 4.
The brothers each face up to 20 years in prison per conspiracy or wire fraud count and up to 10 years per money laundering count, prosecutors said. Those are maximum penalties, not sentences the court has imposed. The FBI’s Fort Worth Resident Agency and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Office of Inspector General investigated.
Provided by Dallas Express
