Former Farmer Sentenced to Federal Prison for Lying to His Bank to Get a Line of Credit

A former farmer who lied to a small-town Iowa bank to get a farm operating line of credit was sentenced April 1, 2026, to six months in federal prison.

Mashon Van Mill, age 41, from Shell Rock, Iowa, received the prison term after an October 15, 2025, guilty plea to making a false statement to a financial institution.

In a plea agreement, Van Mill admitted he lied to the bank he had been banking at for nearly two years. Van Mill applied for a $1,000,000 farm operating line of credit with the bank. To secure the loan, Van Mill provided the bank with a balance sheet purporting to show assets he owned to use as collateral for the loan. The balance sheet showed he possessed over $2,000,000 worth of corn in storage. Van Mill lied about the corn. He did not possess any corn in storage.

An employee of the bank got suspicious and began checking whether Van Mill had lied. In doing so, he sent a letter to the owner of an elevator in which Van Mill had claimed to be storing corn. The bank employee received a letter back, which was purportedly signed by the elevator owner indicating Van Mill had corn in storage. When law enforcement officers later showed the letter to him, the elevator owner denied sending it and said he had never seen the letter from the bank. He also confirmed Van Mill had no corn in storage at the elevator at the time of the lie. Law enforcement officers determined Van Mill had also lied about money he was owed and farm equipment he owned.

By the time his deceit was discovered, the bank had lent Van Mill $873,118.71 on the line of credit. Van Mill defaulted on the entire amount, as well as on several other loans from the bank.

Van Mill was sentenced in Cedar Rapids by United States District Court Chief Judge C.J. Williams. Van Mill was sentenced to six months' imprisonment. He was ordered to make $873,118.71 in restitution to the victim bank. At the time of sentencing, the victim bank had recovered $258,110.17 from Van Mill by garnishing Van Mill's wages and Van Mill's sale of various pieces of property. Van Mill must also serve a five-year term of supervised release after the prison term. There is no parole in the federal system.

Van Mill was released on the bond previously set and is to surrender to the United States Marshal on April 27, 2026.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Anthony Morfitt and investigated by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation - Office of Inspector General and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Court file information at https://ecf.iand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.plLinks to other government and non-government sites will typically appear with the "external link" icon to indicate that you are leaving the Department of Justice website when you click the link..

The case file number is 25-cr-76.

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