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WEBSTER CITY -- The Texas jury trial for three men who were key in the operation of VeroBlue Farms USA in Webster City until its 2018 demise has been rescheduled.
Leslie Wulf, Bruce Hall and John Rea were scheduled to go to jury trial late this month on multiple felony charges related to the firm.
Their Aug. 28 court date in Collin County, Texas, has been reset for Oct. 2, according to online court records.
Their pre-trial hearings are Sept. 20.
The three were indicted by a grand jury in Collin County, Texas, last summer.
Wulf, 62; Hall, 67; and Rea, 57, were all arrested on Feb. 24, online records show.
Each face charges of false statement for property/credit and secure execution of doc by deception. Both are first-degree felonies.
Documents for each individual on the false statement charge read: "on or about the 1st day of July, 2015 to on or about the 31st day of July, 2020 in said county (Collin) and State (Texas) did then intentionally and knowingly make a materially false or misleading written statement to VeroBlue Farms USA, namely by altering a 3rd party assessment documentation without authorization and using those documents, with the intent to obtain investors and loan funding for an agribusiness in Iowa and the amount received was $300,000 or more."
Documents for each individual on the deception charge read: "on or about the 1st day of July, 2015 to on or about the 31st day of July, 2020 in said county (Collin) and State (Texas), did then and there, with intent to harm or defraud VeroBlue Farms USA, cause VeroBlue USA to sign or execute a document, without the effective consent, namely by deception, alter a 3rd party business assessment that was then distributed to potential investors and lenders as authentic, which affected the pecuniary interest of VeroBlue Farms USA, the value of the pecuniary interest being $300,000 or more."
Indictments in each case were filed in early November 2022.
No further details about the cases were available.
In Texas, a felony of the first degree is punishable by a mandatory minimum prison sentence of five years. Depending on the severity of the crime, there is a possibility of probation.
VeroBlue Farms, which promised to make fish a leading commodity in Webster City, filed for Chapter 11 in federal bankruptcy court in late 2018, disclosing that it was drowning in more than $100 million debt, most of which is unsecured.
VBF, according to its bankruptcy petition, owed $98,943,246.22 in unsecured debt to its top 20 creditors.
It had another $6 million in secured debt assigned to Broadmoor Financial LP, of Wichita, Kansas, as VBF's top creditor. VBF owed more than $53 million to that firm alone.
In a separate civil lawsuit, five of VeroBlue's top management were accused of misappropriation of funds. The suit, filed in federal court, claimed Wulf, Hall, Rea, James Rea, and Keith Driver "wasted VBF assets."