$3M Marana cattle fraud shatters friendship, puts 2 families on financial brink
Behind the scenes at one of the busiest stockyards in Arizona, $3 million worth of cattle was stolen from a prominent Marana family by a man they once considered a friend, federal prosecutors said in court documents.
Last August, longtime cattleman and well-known rodeo cowboy Clay Parsons discovered $1.3 million missing from the accounts of the Marana Stockyards and Livestock Market, which his family has run since the early 1990s. The stockyards line of credit also was drawn down inexplicably by nearly $2 million, according to records from U.S. District Court in Tucson.
A trail of fraudulent documents led to Seth Nichols, the stockyards 29-year-old office manager and son of Donald Hugh Nichols, a cattle broker who had been friends with Parsons for decades, court records show.
Seth Nichols pleaded guilty to federal bank fraud in February and faces up to five years in prison. His father was indicted Aug. 22 as a co-conspirator in $1.6 million of fraudulent cattle sales at the stockyards auctions.
Read more: https://tucson.com/news/local/m-marana-cattle-fraud-shatters-friendship-puts-families-on-financial/article_dc13f0e5-6e95-545a-8b61-2fb55569064d.html