Veterinarian Dr. Donald Yorlets of New Oxford, Pennsylvania, has pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges in the case of U.S. cattle sent to Canada with fraudulent blood work.
The cattle were not tested as required for diseases such as brucellosis, tuberculosis, leucosis and bovine viral diarrhea.
Instead blood samples from healthy and tested cattle were sent to a laboratory in Harrisburg, Pa., to gain export certificates.
Court documents indicate that at least 1,000 cattle were involved over three and a half years.
The exports were also to Mexico, Puerto Rico and Qatar.
Facing charges of wire fraud are brothers Daniel Gutman, 38, and Benjamin Gutman, 38, both of Maryland.
They run Gutman Brothers Ltd., one of the world’s largest companies dealing in dairy cattle. Their operations are in Baltimore, Maryland, and Spring Grove and New Holland, Pennsylvania.
Thanks to colleague Ian Cumming for sleuthing out this story. He apparently got the news before the Canadian Food Inspection Agency which is charged with preventing these communicable cattle diseases from getting into the country and/or spreading within Canada.
They will either be busy trying to cover their butts, or testing a whack of Canadian cattle, or maybe both.
Of course, this all happened in the U.S. under President Donald Trump's watch. His administration was apparently fixated on milk and dairy exports to Canada, not dairy cattle exports.
