Phony Cattle Registrations: Klingeisen Wants to Clear His Name

By Ron Johnson, Dairy Editor
Thursday, May 22, 2008 1:06 PM CDT

Joe Klingeisen wants to clear his name.

The dairy farmer from Reedsville, in Manitowoc County, says he is not the one who signed his name on cattle registration papers, making grade Holsteins seem to be registered Holsteins.

Instead, two other men have been linked to the crime. Last September, James Dedering, 46, Chilton, pled guilty to a charge of “misappropriation of personal identifying materials” and being a party to a crime, according to Manitowoc County District Attorney Kenneth Kratz.

This past March, another man, Barry L. Soukup, 39, Reedsville, pled “no contest” to the same charge, says Kratz.

Both Dedering and Soukup were given 12-month “diversion” agreements. Among other things, Dedering is supposed to not violate any more Wisconsin or federal laws, not engage in cattle sales, and file a monthly report with the district attorney.

Soukup “shall not provide false information or forge signatures on animal identification applications or applications for transfer when registering or transferring animals,” his agreement states. Soukup is also to perform 20 hours of community service, pay a $25 “community service fee” and file monthly reports with the district attorney.

Klingeisen, who milks a small herd of registered Holsteins and sells 10 to 15 head a year, tells Agri-View that he is not entirely satisfied with the conclusion of his five-year ordeal.

“It’s better than nothing,” Klingeisen comments. “…If it would have been me…I’d probably have got put in jail.”

Klingeisen says the forging of his name dates to early 2003. A copy of a criminal complaint and summons by Calumet County Circuit Court states that Soukup forged Klingeisen’s name between Jan. 13 and Jan. 14 of that year.

“…Klingeisen…informed a detective from Manitowoc County that someone was registering cattle in Klingheisen’s name through the Holstein Association,” the complaint says. “…Klingeisen learned of this when he received copies of the registration applications and found that his signature on the documents had been forged. He stated later that the cattle in question were sold to Saudi Arabia as registered cattle when they were, in fact, grade cows.”

That’s a summary of what allegedly occurred. Here’s what Klingeisen has to say.

Soukup, according to Klingeisen, took cattle registration papers from his house. This happened when Klingeisen was embroiled in a divorce and was not living on his farm.

Then, according to Klingeisen, Soukup, a cattle dealer at the time, along with Dedering, then an employee of Wisconsin Holstein Services, Chilton, used information from the registration papers to concoct phony pedigrees for grade heifers.

Buyers in Saudi Arabia wanted Holstein heifers, recalls Klingeisen. But they had to be registered Holsteins. Grade heifers would not fill the bill.

So, according to Klingeisen, Soukup and Dedering simply filled in new registration forms with information from his papers. These were all registration papers from cattle that had died, Klingeisen says.

Soukup and Dedering also thumbed through bull stud listings for names of sires to use on the registration papers, Klingeisen continues. Any heifers that would be flown to Arabia had to be 24 to 27 months old, so Soukup and Dedering made sure they used information for dams that were at least four years old.

From there, says Klingeisen, Soukup and Dedering mailed the registration forms to the office of Holstein Association USA, in Brattleboro, Vt., where they were accepted as genuine. The result, says Klingeisen, was that Soukup and Dedering were able to sell grade Holstein heifers as registered animals. Klingeisen says the pair purchased the heifers from area farmers for $900 each and sold them for twice that - $1,800 each.

“There’s no way you can blood type a dead cow,” Klingeisen points out. “So they knew they couldn’t get caught. That was their whole scheme.”

But they did get caught. Klingeisen says he found out about the forgeries from friends who had bought cattle from him.

They were checking the Holstein Association USA website to seek whether the cattle had been transferred to their names.

“They called me up,” says Klingeisen. “They said, ‘Joe, by the way, do you know you sold 19 heifers to Saudi Arabia?’”

Klingeisen says he could not have sold cattle to Arabian buyers or anyone else at the time. His assets were frozen because of the divorce dispute.

Eventually, investigators from the USDA and the Wisconsin agriculture department contacted Klingeisen.

“At the time, when they came to me, I was shaking, man. I thought, ‘They’re after me,” because I knew about it…” Klingeisen says.

He isn’t happy with the way Holstein Association USA accepted the fake registration papers.

“…The Holstein Association was very sloppy… They should have suspected something…” Klingeisen asserts.

For example, Klingeisen says some of the phony registration forms were mailed back to Soukup and Dedering.

“…We saw it on the forms, where it says, ‘We cannot use this cow. She’s been dead…” Klingeisen says.

So, says Klingeisen, Soukup or Dedering simply crossed out the old information, wrote in new information, and mailed the same form back to Brattleboro.

Other of the phony registration forms listed a particular dam as the mother of a heifer when she was already documented as being the mother of another heifer of about the same age, Klingeisen says.

Then there’s the matter of the twins. Klingeisen says authorities investigated the paperwork on every truckload of 34 heifers from the area that went to Saudi Arabia.

“There were semiloads that had 17 sets of twins on them,” says the dairy farmer. “Of course, we talked to the Holstein Association, and the odds of that are almost like zero…”

Klingeisen thinks so many supposed “twins” resulted because it was easier to make “one dead cow the mother of two grade heifers” instead of coming up with different information.

What’s more, says Klingeisen, the 34 heifers he supposedly sold were all born within 90 days of each other.

“And I was only milking 60 cows… What a run of heifers!” he says.

Much of what was going on was unknown to Klingeisen at the time, he says. That’s because, he says, Soukup made arrangements with Holstein Association USA to mail the accepted registration papers to him n not to Klingeisen.

He says Soukup and Dedering told the association they were registering the heifers because Klingeisen had not already done so. They further claimed, says Klingeisen, that they simply wanted to save on transfer fees.

Even though it’s now case closed, Klingeisen still has some explaining to do. He says he is still ironing things out with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to prove that he did not sell heifers and therefore did not fail to report some $34,000 of income.

And, he still worries that his business could be hurt. People might wonder, says Klingeisen, whether they are really getting registered Holsteins when they buy from him.

Agri-View asked Klingeisen if there is anything other farmers can do to keep from getting entangled in such a situation.

His reply: “Work with reputable dealers. That’s the main thing.”

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