Growers all over the country have been solicited in recent months by an organization called Debt Free Organic , which claims to have a “world money trust” that will pay off farmers’ debts. Many growers who have explored the program have concluded that it is a fraud and several have filed complaints with the FBI and their states’ Attorneys General.
    Farmers were first contacted by phone by a woman identifying  herself as Julie Jacobs, who told the growers that their debts would be canceled if they would apply for the program. She then invited them to listen to a presentation on a conference call or on a CD that is sent by mail. Growing for Market’s editors, who are also farmers, were contacted on Feb. 11 and participated in a conference call on Feb. 13. The conference call was conducted by Penny Gabardi of Draper, Utah.
    During the call, Gabardi said that there was a $50 billion trust fund administered by a man named Dr. Eiche, whose first name, location, or other identifying information cannot be revealed, she said, for security reasons. She said that the trust fund’s mandate was to lift debt from family farmers, up to $2.5 million per farm. Farmers are asked to make a donation of up to  $1,000 for administrative costs for processing their applications.
     Then Gabardi described a system involving “integrity teams”  and “sponsors and patrons” in which growers get paid to solicit other farmers. For each farmer whose debts are paid, she said, the sponsor and patron are in line to split $50,000. Farmers who donated $1,000 up front will receive 100% of that share, or $25,000. Farmers who donated only $100 will receive 10% of the share, or $2,500.
    “You don’t report these funds on any income taxes – that has been prearranged (with) a national ID status through the IRS,” she said when questioned about it during the conference call.
    Claiming that income is nontaxable should be a red flag to farmers, according to Patrick Kiernan of the FBI office in Salt Lake City. He said he could not comment on whether the FBI was investigating the organization, but said that in general “if somebody promises you quick money, you really need to take a close look at it.”
    When Growing for Market contacted Gabardi and offered her a chance to respond to the growers’ allegations that the organization is fraudulent, Gabardi said that it operates “on the private side of the law” and “is certainly not a multi-level scheme of any sort.” When asked for documentation of the trust’s existence, or a referral to farmers whose debts have been paid by it, Gabardi said she would have to pass the request on to Dr. Eiche, and she took the GFM phone number. At press time, Dr. Eiche had not called.
    Gabardi also said “We’re working with a security team that is aware of anybody turning us into the attorney general or the FBI.”
    Pressed to explain, she said: “If folks are calling the FBI, we are immediately notified. The FBI is actually on our team; they’re very much aware of this program. This is something they support.”
    FBI Special Agent Scott Wall flatly denied any communication with the group. “We do not work in conjunction with any kind of secruity team that would whistle our participation to any entity,” he said.
    He invited farmers who think they have been defrauded to call the Salt Lake City FBI office at 801-579-1400 and ask for the complaint agent.
    Sarah Paulson of Sylvanus Farm in Kentucky reported on her contacts with Jacobs and Gabardi: “Debt Free Organic called me and the next day I called the Attorney General of Kentucky, who gave me a list of questions to ask them to determine if they have any legitimacy. When they called me that day, I asked some pointed questions (990, tax ID, bank the trust is held by, list of past recipients etc.) The woman (Julie Jacobs) got hostile. She said she could get the information but she didn’t have it. She said I could Google the guy Dr. J. Eicke and find tons of stuff (he has no web presence by the way). She eventually hung up when I said I wanted one shred of physical evidence that the trust actually exists.
     “Later that night, the other woman (Penny) called me. She said she had a special message for me from Dr. Eicke and she began SCREAMING in my ear ‘Call the FBI, go ahead call the FBI.’ I told her it was very clever that they didn’t share enough information for them to be traced. She hung up on me also. I gave the phone number to the A.G.. office and they said they were going to contact the A.G.. in Utah.”
    Gabardi said during the conference call that she had obtained farmers’ names from the CSA list maintained by the Robyn Van En Center at Wilson College. CSA farmers in Alaska, California, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan and Vermont told Growing for Market that they had been contacted.
    One grower who asked not to be identified wrote this about Debt Free Organic:
    “We were contacted by these people in November or December and we were very excited because we thought they were the real deal.  We had just gone through an abysmal season when everything that could go wrong did and we thought we’d have to give up our farm.  Along came ‘Debt Free Organic’ and we thought ‘How wonderful!  Someone finally understands the difficulties of owning a small farm, the weather, etc.’  I talked to these people for a while on the phone and they agreed to send me some more info.  After getting their materials in the mail and listening the the drivel from the lectures, it was obvious it was a scam.  The woman called me up a week later as promised and I asked her some very specific questions about their program which she avoided one by one until she hung up on me.  I then called the FBI office here in town and forwarded all the info to them.”
    Teresa Oliver, a grower in Kansas,  said that when she told the women she didn’t have any farm debt, they told her she could buy something on credit and then get reimbursed for it. The CD she received in the mail, she said, “was painful to listen to because it was all this talk about neighbor helping neighbor – the way it should be – but you know it’s not true.”