An Iowa farmer who defrauded federal taxpayers out of more than $1.7 million in agricultural subsidies, stole multiple identities and stalked a witness, was sentenced to 13 years in federal prison.
Tanner James Seuntjens, age 33, from Danbury, Iowa, received the prison term after pleading guilty on September 19, 2025, to one count of theft of government funds, one count of aggravated identity theft, one count of crop insurance fraud and one count of stalking.
Evidence in Seuntjens’ cases established that, between June 2020 and June 2021, he was a Western Iowa farmer who defrauded the USDA out of more than $1.5 million in Coronavirus Food Assistance Program grant moneys. Livestock producers qualified for CFAP subsidies on a per head basis that depended upon the producer’s self-certified livestock inventory. Seuntjens filed CFAP applications at three Iowa county USDA-Farm Service Agency offices that each falsely claimed ownership of thousands of swine and forged the signatures of two other people when filing the applications with USDA. He later submitted false documents to USDA-FSA county commissioners who were attempting to verify the USDA payments during so-called “spot checks.”…