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\nTwo Allen County realtors who were indicted last year for conspiring to rig auction bids at estate auctions in exchange for farmland and timber rights have pleaded guilty.<\/p>\n
\nTwo Allen County realtors who were indicted last year for conspiring to rig auction bids at estate auctions in exchange for farmland and timber rights have pleaded guilty.<\/p>\n
Barry Dyer and Mackie Shelton and co-conspirators rigged bids during an auction in 2018 in Allen County for a tract of timber rights and hundreds of acres of farmland.<\/p>\n
Dyer and Shelton filed a plea agreement Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky.<\/p>\n
In a press release from the U.S. Department of Justice, in the plea agreement, Dyer and Shelton pleaded guilty to conspiring with others to rig bids at a 2018 auction for hundreds of acres of farmland and a tract of timber rights.<\/p>\n
Dyer and Shelton demanded and accepted a $40,000 payoff from competing auction participants to stop bidding, artificially suppressing the sales price of the farmland.<\/p>\n
They were both charged with a single-count violation of the Sherman Act that carries a statutory maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $1 million fine. A federal district court judge will determine the defendants\u2019 sentences.
\nSource: WBKO<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Two Allen County realtors who were indicted last year for conspiring to rig auction bids at estate auctions in exchange for farmland and timber rights have pleaded guilty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":3976,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[51,59],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-main-news","category-news","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.wvih.com\/wp1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/guilty-plea.jpg?fit=320%2C240&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6aKAp-aHS","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-11 10:42:37","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wvih.com\/wp1\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wvih.com\/wp1\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wvih.com\/wp1\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wvih.com\/wp1\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wvih.com\/wp1\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41160"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.wvih.com\/wp1\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41160\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41161,"href":"https:\/\/www.wvih.com\/wp1\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41160\/revisions\/41161"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wvih.com\/wp1\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wvih.com\/wp1\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wvih.com\/wp1\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wvih.com\/wp1\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}