Oakes Farms VP pleads guilty in federal fraud case

The former vice president of Oakes Farms Food & Distribution Services admitted he was involved in a price-gouging scheme that defrauded a federal program that provides fresh fruit and vegetables to military bases and schools. 

In a plea agreement filed in U.S. District Court on May 11, William “Bill” Brittenham admitted committing a crime against the Department of Agriculture and Department of Defense’s DoD Fresh program, including providing foreign produce instead of U.S. produce. Brittenham also was president of Rainbow Produce of Gainesville, an Oakes affiliate that, along with Oakes Farms Food & Distribution Services, was dissolved last September. It now exists in Alabama as Oakes Food & Distribution Services under a nominee owner, a name used to protect the true owner’s identity 

The charge carries a maximum of five years in federal prison, a $250,000 fine or twice the gross gain and three years of supervised release. Brittenham will have a plea hearing before U.S. District Magistrate Judge Nicholas P. Mizell on May 27. 

Francis “Alfie” Oakes has not been charged in the fraud and isn’t identified in the plea agreement, except as Coconspirator 1, one of several names prosecutors have used to refer to him and Oakes Farms Food & Distribution Services in other plea agreements, including Entity 1 and Farm Enterprise 1, which owns farming, packing, shipping, retail, food-service and seafood distribution businesses in Southwest Florida. Oakes has not responded to requests for comment. 

The investigation became public after federal agents raided Oakes’ North Naples home and a packing plant in Immokalee in November 2024. 

Brittenham’s plea comes four months after the eighth defendant, Oakes’ accountant, Tom Unsworth, pleaded guilty in frauds involving Oakes employees, affiliates and harvesters. So far, three defendants have been sentenced to federal prison in schemes that defrauded the federal government. The coconspirators have agreed to cooperate fully, including testifying and reimbursing the government. 

The plea agreement states that from about November 2017 through about November 2022, Brittenham, as vice president of Company 1, committed price gouging and country-of-origin fraud tied to Company 1’s DoD Fresh contracts, including Florida North, Florida Central and Florida South. They are among numerous Oakes contracts totaling more than $350 million over the years; many remain active. 

Under the program, contractors charge the government a product cost without a markup, plus a per-unit distribution fee, including delivery, overhead expenses and a profit margin. The cost, or delivered price, is determined every two weeks, when contractors can submit online price-change requests to their school and troop catalogs based on actual costs. The Defense Logistics Agency then determines whether that price is fair and reasonable by requesting the most recent invoices. 

Company 1 was owned by Coconspirator 1, and Coconspirator 2, Brittenham’s direct supervisor, was its president. Coconspirator 2 asked Brittenham for help executing a fraudulent price-gouging scheme and country-of-origin fraud. 

“Brittenham knew that Coconspirator 1 was aware of, and had ultimate control over, the price-gouging scheme and country-of-origin fraud,” the plea agreement states, noting Brittenham assisted Coconspirator 2 with executing gimmick invoices and inflated intercompany invoices. 

“Coconspirator 2 would have Brittenham purchase a large quantity of product at a low price, and a small quantity of product at a high price, but charge the government based on the high price,” the agreement states. 

If the Defense Logistics Agency requested proof, the agreement says, the coconspirators would ask lower-level Company 1 employees to submit the gimmick invoice for the low-quantity, high-priced product, such as a $39 charge per case of lettuce, when they purchased many cases and the most recent price was $15. After Coconspirator 1 acquired or founded additional businesses, the agreement says, Coconspirator 2 would have Brittenham procure intercompany invoices with inflated prices. 

Around early 2019, Coconspirator 1 bought Company 2, a Central Florida food-processing business that processed fruits and vegetables into packaged snack packs for schoolchildren. Alachua County property records show Alfie Oakes purchased Rainbow Produce of Gainesville for $400,000 in 2020 and made Brittenham president. 

The agreement states that Company 2 sold snack packs to private customers at significantly lower prices, following instructions from Coconspirator 2, while charging Company 1 higher prices for orders through the DoD Fresh program. 

It further states that, to justify the inflated prices passed on to the federal government, the conspirators directed lower-level employees at Company 1 to submit inflated intercompany invoices from Company 2 to the Defense Logistics Agency. 

Brittenham and Coconspirator 2 knew federal funds could not be used to purchase foreign produce for schools, only domestic produce, the agreement says, noting that was widely known at Company 1 and Company 2. Yet Brittenham, at Coconspirator 2’s direction, obtained large amounts of grapes from Peru, Chile and Mexico for snack packs at certain times of the year. 

At Coconspirator 2’s direction, Brittenham told Company 1 employees to list grape snack packs as being from Florida in school catalogs. When Brittenham questioned Coconspirator 2 about the mislabeling, Coconspirator 2 pointed out the snack packs were processed and packaged in Florida — so Brittenham did as instructed. 

Brittenham’s defense attorney, Denise O’Halloran of Fort Myers, did not respond to a request for comment.