A Kentucky Bourbon Maker Just Got Indicted for Using His Neighbor’s Cows to Help Secure a $100,000 Loan

Already facing a cascade of financial troubles, the owner of Limestone Farms Distillery faces theft by deception charges as cracks widen across the craft whiskey industry.

BY AMAYA NICHOLE, NEWS WRITER

Illustration: Inc; Photo: Getty Images, Limestone Farms Distillery

A Kentucky grand jury has indicted the owner of Limestone Farms Distillery—or LF Heritage Distilling Company—on one count of theft by deception after he allegedly used a neighbor’s farm equipment and cattle as collateral to get a $100,000 loan.

According to the indictment, in August 2024, Darin Dillow “obtained money from a financial institution, with the intent to deprive the owner thereof, by intentionally creating or reinforcing a false impression that he owed a certain property offered as collateral for a loan, when fact he did not own the property.”

Dillow’s neighbor William McIntosh claims that the property Dillow used as collateral belongs to his family and that they only found out about it when Dillow defaulted on the loan and his property was about to be seized.

“I could not believe that this would actually happen to us. It’s something like out of a movie, but just the betrayal of this person,” McIntosh told LEX18 News. “It’s someone we’ve ate with, we’ve been on vacation together. We’ve been friends for over 10 years.”

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Additionally, McIntosh alleges that Dillow went as far as telling the loan officer that his father and uncle were two of his workers.

“He said those were his employees, seasonal employees, according to what he had told the loan officer, and according to the pictures my dad’s truck and my uncle’s truck were there,” McIntosh explained. “They’ve never worked a second for that man.”

These charges come in addition to allegations that Dillow failed to pay contractors and subcontractors for work performed on a second distillery he had planned to build, but never progressed beyond the excavation phase.

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