I remember when Bob Mercer didn’t know a hyperlink from a hashtag. Now he’s digging up documents and Facebook connections like the best of bloggers.
Mercer checks the Public Utilities Commission dockets and finds the PUC will hear charges against one Jeremey Frost of Onida on Wednesday, April 7, for selling grain without a license. According to the PUC complaint, Frost’s company, Fearless Grain Marketing, which was incorporated in May 2017, has never obtained a grain buyer’s license. PUC staff sent Frost information on the license requirements in 2018. Toward the end of December 2020, the PUC received an application for a Class B grain buyer’s license from Frost for another corporate entity, formed just last September, called Fearless Grain Marketing, Storage & Arbitrage, LLC, but the application didn’t include a bond or license fee:
7. Staff reviewed Fearless MSA application and financial documents. On or about January 29, 2021, Fearless MSA notified Staff the company was unable to obtain a bond. See Affidavit of Paul Kenefick-Aschoff.
8. On February 18, 2021, Staff informed Frost that Fearless MSA would not qualify for a license based on inability to secure a bond. See Affidavit of Paul Kenefick-Aschoff.
9. On February 18, 2021, Staff reached out to Frost to again explain the state licensing requirements and cautioned not to purchase grain without a valid license. See Affidavit of Paul Kenefick-Aschoff [Amanda M. Reiss and Kristen Edwards, PUC staff attorneys, Complaint and Request for Injunction, In the Matter of the PUC Staff’s Complaint Against Fearless Grain Marketing, LLC and Jeremey Frost, PUC Docket GW21-001, 2021.03.31].
Despite that caution, PUC staff found Frost made multiple grain purchases, failed to pay for those purchases, and concealed information from PUC investigators:
10. Staff continued to monitor Fearless and Frost and on or about March 10 2021, Staff became aware that Fearless may again be purchasing grain without a license. Staff opened an investigation and began a full inspection of Fearless’ books. See Affidavit of Sarah McIntosh.
11. On March 17, 2021, Staff conducted an inspection of Fearless. See Affidavit of Sarah McIntosh.
12. Through its investigation of Fearless, Staff learned that Fearless has made more than 23 purchases of grain without a license going back to at least July 8, 2020. See Affidavit of Sarah McIntosh.
13. Through its investigation, Staff learned that Fearless/Frost had not provided payment for a number of these purchases within 30 days of delivery, as required by SDCL 49- 45-10.
14. On March 17, 2021, after learning of these purchases, Staff reached out to Fearless and Frost indicating Staff found evidence of a violation and indicated Staff’s willingness to work to resolve the matter, with the expectation Fearless and Frost cease grain buying activities.
15. On or about March 30, 2021 Staff became aware that Fearless/Frost had purchase contracts that were not disclosed to Staff on the March 17, 2021 inspection. See Paul Kenefick-Aschoff Timeline [Complaint a Request for Injunction, 2021.03.31].
Under SDCL 49-45-1, each illegal purchase could cost Frost $1,000, up to a maximum penalty of $20,000, and PUC staff are asking for that maximum penalty.
On the same day that Frost received that bad news from the PUC, he received good news from the Bureau of Finance and Management. On March 31, 2021, the state issued another Frost corporation, Frost Enterprises, $35,420.79 in federal coronavirus relief cash. Frost could use that check to pay for almost two of his illegal grain purchases.
Frost has also incurred the wrath of Tennessee ag-marketer Indigo Ag, which is suing Fearless Grain Marketing for grain contract violations:
In the suit, Indigo accuses FGM of “fraud” in failing to honor agreements on confidentiality and non-disparagement, including telling customers Indigo was trying to “blackmail” them.
They say Frost exceeded his authority by telling growers they could back out of the contracts when the market moved against them.
In the suit, Indigo says it has sustained damage of at least $75,000 but that the dispute has caused the company to incur costs and disbursements of more than $8 million. Indigo said FGM is responsible to pay “any and all damages.”
“In effort to shift blame from FGM to Indigo for the reckless short positions FGM counseled its growers to enter into through the Indigo Marketplace,” FGM “instructed” grower-clients to “breach their outstanding forward contracts with Indigo,” the complaint said [Mikkel Pates, “Indigo Ag Sues South Dakota Grain Adviser in Federal Court in Memphis,” AgWeek, 2021.03.19].
In the least of Frost’s concerns, I know trademark infringement isn’t the PUC’s purview, but DC Comics might have something to say about Frost’s use of its registered trademark in his marketing:
Frost evidently has a thing for using famous icons to promote his businesses. The intrepid Bob Mercer riffles through Frost’s five Onida-based businesses and finds one of them is Frost Enterprises, which Frost incorporated in 2017. Frost forgot to file his annual report in 2019, faced administrative dissolution for delinquency in March 2020, then filed a make-up report in April so he could be reinstated by May 13, five days after the Game Fish and Parks Commission approved a lease for Frost to take over concessions at the Spring Creek Recreation Area seventeen miles north of Pierre. Governor Kristi Noem appears to have visited the restarted concessions area pretty soon after that, because, as Bob Mercer discovered, Frost features a photo of Noem at the resort as the banner for his Frost Enterprises dba Spring Creek Facebook page:
Governor Noem also made a point of handing out trophies at Spring Creek last July during last summer’s Governor’s Cup Walleye Tournament. Dang: one would think that having Governor Noem help promote the business would have insulated Spring Creek from any pandemic recession impacts and kept him from needing any coronavirus relief money. Mercer could keep an eye out in the halls of the Capitol Wednesday to see if Governor Noem pokes her head into Wednesday’s PUC hearing to help Frost sell his defense to our skeptical PUC attorneys.
At least he’s a DC fan. Wonder what he thought of the Synder cut?
It appears as though this guy is dead set against earning a living with any sort of honor. Wonder how much he has contributed to various GIP candidates?
Or even GOP candidates. I expect some, at least, has been contributed by this fellow. grudznick has a request in to get Mr. H’s records in case his family has many visits to this resort, which seems too ritzy for most.
0 contributed
More to the story on the grain purchases
The laws around grain purchases are made to protect farmers
That’s what was done. Help protect my customers/farmers
The former POTUS gave us more than a lack-luster response to a Covid pandemic and running of governmental affairs. I sense a national damaged pysche akin to PTSD in troops stationed in combat zones from the years of stressed out rage and injustice handed us by him and his ‘elite’ bunch of would-be autocrats.
He’s spawned in the national pysche idiots like Gaetz, Boebert, Cruz, and others who were like him, more interested in their own selves than the country.
Money, Greed, and Power; and the Love of all three!
Wow. More confirmation you can break the law with impunity in SD if you know the right people.
Corruption in Duh Kota. Noem is setting up a Grassy Knoll in Pierre to assassinate Democracy.
With a Cruz-Noem ticket in 2024, bad things on the horizon.
We have to keep winning in any way. If the Democrats can’t do it, maybe Purple Western Greens or Populists can.
I didn’t see contributions from Frost in my quick scan of Noem’s 2020 and 2018 year-end reports. I have not reviewed all of Noem’s state and federal reports yet.
Can anyone ‘splain how “selling greed and buying fear” makes sense?
For farmers using risk management; selling greed means make a profitable grain sale instead of being greedy hoping that the price will continue to get better.
Buying greed means to not make panic sales when fear of lower prices takes over. It’s a saying that i have used to help farmer balance their risk management when they sell their crops.
Ag is one industry that has extreme volatility at times and we dont have to be profitable.
Frost, if you think that you are showing “a big pair” by blogging BS like above, you are greatly mistaken! All you show, is that you drank copious amounts of the trump Kool-Aid and that your sense of grift was highly enabled under the former POTUS.
Why do guys like you and Trump think that rules don’t apply to you? Only to those that are stupid enough to follow them? Shameful.
If there’s more to the story, Mr. Frost, we’re all ears.
“The laws around grain purchases are made to protect farmers. That’s what was done. Help protect my customers/farmers.”
Hmm… laws in general are made to protect all people. You can act to protect a small group of people and still be violating the law. We need to hear more to understand what protection you were offering your customers and how that protection was legal.
And we’ll need to hear how trying to sell grain without a license is legal or protects anyone.
We’re all ears, Mr. Frost. You know how to type, and the comment section is open. But please: no t-shirt slogans or sales pitch. Just explain what happened.
leslie
2021-04-02
“Is this true? That she has been tested, travels the nation constantly, at taxpayer expense (unless otherwise proven), to hot spots like Mara Largo—and hasn’t been vaccinated? Is she daft? Virtually nothing she says publicly is true?”
She had said, AFTER Thune and Palin urged all to get vaccinations: “There will never be the heavy hand of government mandating that you get the vaccine,” she said. “We will trust our people to do the right thing”
Cory posted today: “Governor Kristi Noem got her first coronavirus vaccine yesterday! She even wore a mask and used an exclamation point… though strangely, the camera-friendly politician did not turn her [trucker’s camo-capped) face toward the camera.” Hahaha in the face of death!
Similarly this week, turning the English language upside down, was Sen. Lindsey Graham: “Count me in for robust voting, count me in for everybody being able to vote, but I want to make sure they do it without cheating.” The Hill
There is no proof of cheating, except Trump and Putin 2016, for which 45 is likely bound for prison (after killing at least a couple hundred thousand American citizens/residents by failing to “protect my customers/farmers” as some in SD say. And of course the attempt to take away Biden’s election 1.06.21.
Or there is this, on cue: “My warning … to corporate America is to stay out of politics,” said Sen. Mitch McConnell [defending Georgia’s new Jim Crow] who has long argued that corporate donations are protected political speech.
When questioned, he added: “I’m not talking about political contributions.” NYT
Red state leaders and their elected DC politicians are proven incapable of governing but excel in shell/word games.
Looks like the PUC has regulatory authority over Frost, at least. Better talk to his lawyer before too many more comments though.
From puc website
‘What is a grain originator or roving grain buyer?
A grain originator or roving grain buyer is a person or entity acting as a middleman between a producer and a buyer. A grain originator or roving grain buyer does not take title to the grain, nor take possession. They facilitate a contract between a buyer and a producer.’
The above has been what myself and FGM have done or had the intention of doing. I would like to say more but my lawyer and guys on here I think would chew me up a bit
she said. “We will trust our people to do the right thing”
Magat’s iteration of football’s “Hail Mary” on opening drive, first quarter.
Why would a farmer want to do business with someone who advocates breaking a contract, even if it’s in their favor?