IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) – An influential hog dealer sanctioned twice for defrauding pork producers out of hundreds of thousands of dollars said it has fired employees responsible for its latest violations and paid restitution to affected sellers.

Lynch Livestock, based in Waucoma, also announced that pork industry veteran Dan Sutherland would lead the company going forward “as a further safeguard against future violations,” citing Sutherland’s experience in compliance matters.

Lynch announced those moves in a press release posted recently, after The Associated Press reported that the USDA had taken enforcement action against the company for illegal buying practices for the second time since 2017.

The company’s longtime owner, Gary Lynch, a top booster of Iowa State athletics and political donor to Iowa Republican elected officials, hasn’t returned messages seeking comment.

In the press release, his company said the USDA received a complaint in January that employees at its Waucoma buying station were manipulating the scale and issuing false tickets to artificially lower payments to producers.

Lynch said it investigated the allegations and terminated an unspecified number of employees who engaged in those practices.

“Although this situation arose due to the actions of a few employees at one buying station, we take this matter very seriously,” Gary Lynch, 74, was quoted as saying. USDA said its investigation found the practices went on for three years, from January 2018 through 2020. The agency ordered Lynch Livestock to pay $445,626 in penalties and restitution, and to stop recording false weights, altering classifications of hogs delivered and creating false scale tickets.

The company said restitution has already been sent to producers who were underpaid for their hogs.