A review of state brand inspection records has failed to find discrepancies that would explain how one of the nation’s largest meatpackers could have lost 200,000 cattle through business dealings with a Mesa, Washington-based rancher.
The Washington state Department of Agriculture initiated the audit earlier this year after Tyson Fresh Meats, which operates a packing plant near Pasco, alleged in a lawsuit that Easterday Ranches Inc. defrauded the meatpacker of $225 million by claiming to have purchased and fed for the company about 200,000 cattle that never existed.
“Given the two operations are engaged in this legal dispute involving the number of cattle, the program undertook this because it
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