Iowa dairy farm receiving death threats

The Iowa dairy farm that had employed the man charged with killing 20-year-old Mollie Tibbetts is now the recipient of death threats.  Yarrabee Farms — where Cristhian Bahena Rivera, the 24-year-old immigrant accused of abducting and killing Tibbetts, worked for four years — has received at least 100 threatening voicemail messages. Threats have included burning down buildings and even killing their dog after learning Rivera was employed at the farm.

Yarrabee Farms, owned by a well-known family in Iowa ag, initially said they had gone through the proper legal channels to hire Rivera. However, on Wednesday afternoon co-owner Dane Lang made a statements saying the farm had come to learn Rivera was not who he said he was and “that the Social Security Administration’s employment verification service is not the same as E-Verify.” The farm had used a system relying on a driver’s license and Social Security card, and Rivera had provided an out-of-state ID and other false documents.

Craig Lang, another one of the owners of Yarrabee Farms, is a former president of the Iowa Farm Bureau and the Iowa Board of Regents and was once a candidate for state secretary of agriculture.