9-316.1.Tenant's duty to disclose to landlord identity of vendee of crops.

Section 9-316.1 backs up the disclosure mechanism Section 9-316 creates with criminal penalties. Where a landlord has required, under Section 9-316, that the tenant disclose the intended buyer before selling crops grown on the leased premises, subsection (a) makes it unlawful for the tenant to sell those crops to anyone other than a person already disclosed to the landlord.

The penalties scale with who violates the requirement. An individual who knowingly violates the section is guilty of a Class A misdemeanor. A corporation convicted of a violation is guilty of a business offense and faces a fine of not less than $2,000 nor more than $10,000. And when the tenant itself is a corporation or a partnership, the statute reaches through the entity to individuals: any officer, director, manager, or managerial agent who violates the section, or who causes the tenant to violate it, is personally guilty of a Class A misdemeanor.

The statute also gives the tenant a way out after the fact. It is an affirmative defense to prosecution that the tenant paid the landlord the proceeds from the crop sale within ten days after the sale, so a tenant who makes the landlord whole quickly can avoid criminal liability even after selling to an undisclosed buyer.