St. Matthews, SC 03/07/2024 (Paul Kirby) – An Aiken County man has been charged with several crimes that involve the theft of multiple tractor trailer loads of feed corn. According to the victim of these crimes, incidents of theft happened in Lexington, Orangeburg, and Calhoun counties. Monday, Brandon Lamar “Grunt” Hoffman of Wagner, SC turned himself in on charges in Calhoun County. Both Lexington and Orangeburg Counties have taken reports and are believed to be investigating instances of corn theft by Hoffman in their jurisdictions. Additional charges should be forthcoming in those counties.
In total, it is alleged that Hoffman stole 19 tractor trailer loads of feed corn valued at about $120,000 dollars. A Calhoun County judge released Hoffman on his own recognizance on their charges. It is unclear when and if the other 2 counties will have their cases tied up and if Hoffman will be arrested on similar charges in Lexington and Orangeburg County soon.
Hoffman is no stranger to law enforcement when it comes to relationships with employers and former “friends”, most who now say they wish they never met him. According to public records, in late 2011, he was charged with more than 20 counts of what is said to have been financial crimes involving stolen checks from a Swansea based business. In that case, the plaintiff was originally defrauded of approximately $50,000. The plaintiff in that case agreed to drop the charges after a compromise was made with Hoffman that allowed him to pay restitution to the victim rather than go to jail. This compromise was approved by a General Session judge. Another large farm operator based in the Pelion area of Lexington County said that he had Hoffman working on his land for a period and he, “ran him off,” when he caught him on video stealing diesel fuel. He reported this to the Lexington County Sheriff’s Department but currently doesn’t know the status of this case.
The victim in the 2023 crimes is Thomas Russell Sharpe, of North, SC. He owns Sharpe’s Farm, LLC. He had known Hoffman for a number of years and considered him a close friend. Sharpe farmed more than 1,800 acres of his own and leased farmland in the 3 counties already mentioned. Sharpe said that he and Hoffman had eaten meals together, and he welcomed him like a family member. Sharpe thought Hoffman was helping him out when he contracted to cut and haul corn for Sharpe in the fall of 2023. Hoffman agreed to the contract which paid him a set amount for every acre he cut. At the time, Sharpe was dealing with his mother who was suffering from Alzheimer’s and his father who was ill and eventually died during that same period. Sharpe said, “He even sent flowers when my dad died. I thought he was a great guy until I caught him stealing from me red handed.”
While stealing feed corn may seem like a trivial or victimless crime, it affects every consumer. Feed corn is a major component in most livestock and even some household pet feeds. If you ever buy chicken and turkey, pork, or beef, and even many major brands of dry dog food, the cost of corn is factored into their prices at the store. The same can be said for eggs and milk. All these groceries are more expensive if the price of corn goes up. If there’s less corn available, the price of corn can rise. If a farmer loses $120,000 worth of corn, he stands to lose but so does the consumer at the grocery or feed store.
Sharpe said that he caught Hoffman red handed in Lexington County. On October 25, 2023, Sharpe had contracted Hoffman to cut corn off Lee Witt Road just outside of Swansea. On that date, Hoffman was using his own combine, a tractor that picks grain like corn, while a laborer, Juan, that had worked with Sharpe for years, used Sharpe’s tractor and a grain hopper to haul corn in the field. Juan would catch and haul the corn to Sharpe’s Peterbilt truck and trailer that was also on the property. Then it was transferred into the larger trailer. The next day, October 26, Juan reported to Sharpe that at the end of the previous day he and Hoffman had left Sharpe’s tractor trailer truck and the grain hopper full in the field where they could be hauled to a grain bin on Sharpe’s land in North, S.C. for storage. When Juan showed up to work on the 26th, he was confused to see the full grain hopper there, but Sharpe’s tractor trailer truck was empty. This truck had a capacity of roughly 1,000 bushels of corn that had a wholesale value at that time of about $6,500. Finding this to be extremely suspicious, Shape went back to that field at about 11:30 p.m. that night. He became even more suspicious when he found Hoffman’s Nissan pickup truck there along with Hoffman’s combine. Sharpe’s farm tractor, and full grain bin were also at the site, but Sharpe’s full tractor trailer was gone!
Because of his knowledge of Hoffman and how he operated, Sharpe felt like he had taken the tractor trailer truck home in Wagner on the evening of October 26th and suspected he would drive it to Columbia Farms to sell it for chicken feed early on the morning of the 27th. Feed buyers normally open at 7:00 a.m. and close at 7:00 p.m. Sharpe got up early on the morning of October 27th, drove to Monetta where the Columbia Farms buyer operates, and hid his pickup truck where it couldn’t easily be seen from the road. Then he waited. In a short period, Sharpe saw his Peterbilt truck and trailer driven by Hoffman pull up and begin the process of preparing to offload the corn. As soon as Hoffman completed the sale of the corn and left, Sharpe went inside the office to speak with the buying crew which he knew well. A friend of his in that office said that she had just bought a full load of corn from Hoffman and credited the sale to his account, not Sharpe’s. It was delivered in Sharpe’s truck and trailer. Sharpe later worked with the buying staff at Columbia Farms and found that in March of 2023, Hoffman had started selling corn there that belonged to him not Hoffman. All these loads were sold at a time when Hoffman was hauling corn for Sharpe’s Farms, LLC. He could not have been cutting and hauling for anyone else because he was in Sharpe’s fields every day. Hoffman restarted in September of 2023 and continued until he was caught at the end of October. Each of the loads Hoffman sold at Columbia Farms was worth approximately $6,499. This price does not take into account the fact that Hoffman was using Sharpe’s Peterbilt for most of the loads and burning Sharpe’s diesel fuel.
On another date in 2023, Sharpe contracted to sell 40,000 bushels of feed corn to Newberry Feed. He checked his electronic measuring system on his grain bins, and they showed he had roughly 38,000 bushels stored. This measuring system can fluctuate by a small amount and Sharpe was aware of this. To deliver this amount of corn to Newberry, 40 loads in total, Sharpe hired Hoffman to drive his tractor trailer and several other contract drivers. Sharpe caught Hoffman on a newly installed camera near one of his fields again driving fully loaded trailers in the early morning hours away from where they had been cutting the day before. Even though the grain bin management system showed 38,000 bushels in storage, as the drivers delivered the corn to Newberry, it ran out after delivering approximately 29,500 bushels. Sharpe alleges that Hoffman was not taking every load to Newberry, rather he was taking some to Newberry and selling the rest to another buyer for his own profit. He says he can prove this through paperwork from other buyers.
Hoffman retained an attorney well before his arrest in Calhoun County Monday. He has since been calling other farmers to “chat” about work. Many of those farmers say that Hoffman’s reputation precedes him, and they will not let him work for them again. One said he wasn’t sure if Hoffman was fishing for information on the case or what, but he certainly didn’t want him around his place anymore.
Sheriff Tom Summers of the Calhoun County Sheriff's Department said in an interview Tuesday that he takes agricultural theft seriously. “Calhoun County is a county that produces many different types of agricultural products. It is a big part of our economy. As long as I’m sheriff, we are going to protect our farmers. If someone commits a crime against one of them, they will be prosecuted to the fullest extent possible,” Summers concluded.
Sharpe said, “A lot of money runs through a farming operation and people think that the farmer is getting rich. That’s not true at all. Even though a lot of money comes through my books, by the time I pay my leases, seed and fertilizer bills, fuel cost, labor, taxes, insurance, and equipment payments, very little of that money is left for me and my family. Because of what Grunt (Hoffman) stole from me, I may have to sell my combine and buy something older and cheaper.” He went on to say that the pain of these thefts will stay with him and his family for years to come.
Calhoun County has charged Hoffman with 3 counts of Breach of Trust with Fraudulent Intent in Excess of $2,000 but not more than $10,000. These are felony charges punishable by up to 5 years in prison on each count. If all 3 counties charge him similarly for all the loads he stole from Sharpe, 19 in total, he could be looking at 95 years in a state penitentiary.
In closing Russell Sharpe said, “I don’t want restitution where he can pay me a few hundred a month and not have a conviction on his record. At this point, I think he needs some real prison time. He has shown time and again that he’ll steal from other folks. It’ time he faces some real consequences.”
All suspects are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
PHOTO: Brandon (Grunt) Hoffman - Facebook
