Date: Aug. 22, 2024 Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov Saint George, UT — Ryan Palmer, of Sanpete County, was sentenced today to 50 months’ imprisonment, a term of five years’ supervised release, and ordered by the court to pay $1,216,884.49 in restitution after he admitted to bank fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering. Palmer took more than $1.2 million from trusting farmers who were deceived into thinking he would help them buy and sell farm equipment. According to court documents and statements made at Palmer’s change of plea hearing, beginning in 2017 and continuing until December 2021, Palmer devised a scheme to defraud 25 victims by telling them he could sell or obtain farm equipment on their behalf. Palmer operated a farm equipment company called Palmer Equipment, LLC. Palmer falsely represented to clients that he would sell their agriculture equipment on consignment at specific minimum prices, with the understanding that the clients would receive the sale proceeds and Palmer would receive a portion of those proceeds for his services. Instead, Palmer kept all proceeds and lied to the victims about the sale of their equipment. Other times, he promised to purchase seller victims’ equipment, took possession of the equipment, and made partial payments or failed to make any payments. On another occasion, Palmer, pledged a victim’s Allis-Chalmers tractor as collateral to obtain a loan without the victim’s authorization. Palmer lied to Utah Independent Bank about who owned the equipment and used a $51,000 loan for his own personal benefit. He then sold and kept the money for himself without delivering the sale proceeds to the tractor’s rightful owner. United States Attorney Trina A. Higgins made the announcement. The case was investigated jointly by IRS Criminal Investigation (CI), the FBI Salt Lake City Field Office, the Sevier County Sheriff’s Office, and the Salina City Police Department. Assistant United States Attorney Stephen P. Dent from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Utah prosecuted the case. CI is the criminal investigative arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money-laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a more than a 90 percent federal conviction rate. The agency has 20 field offices located across the U.S. and 12 attaché posts abroad.
