{"id":299332,"date":"2026-10-03T23:04:35","date_gmt":"2026-10-03T23:04:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/299332\/"},"modified":"2026-10-03T23:04:35","modified_gmt":"2026-10-03T23:04:35","slug":"man-sued-for-allegedly-selling-fake-spotted-lanternfly-permits-to-pennsylvania-businesses-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/299332\/","title":{"rendered":"Man sued for allegedly selling fake spotted lanternfly permits to Pennsylvania businesses"},"content":{"rendered":"

HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHP) \u2014 An Idaho man is accused of selling fake spotted lanternfly permits to Pennsylvania businesses, according to the attorney general’s office. <\/p>\n

Kevin Wardell and his business, Diverse Solutions, LLC, allegedly impersonated the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture and sold permits by sending letters to businesses. <\/p>\n

Wardell allegedly threatened civil and criminal penalties to businesses that did not immediately purchase permits and training, according to Sunday. <\/p>\n

Attorney General Dave Sunday said an official permit is free and can only be obtained by completing a training offered by the Department of Agriculture.<\/a><\/p>\n

Businesses that move certain materials<\/a> in and out of Pennsylvania, such as wood, concrete and other construction materials, are required to complete a training and obtain a permit. <\/p>\n

The goal of the training is to prevent the spread of spotted lantern flies, which is considered an invasive species in Pennsylvania. <\/p>\n

The lawsuit asks the court to prohibit Wardell and his business from conducting business in Pennsylvania. It also seeks restitution for businesses that purchased permits or training. <\/p>\n

\u201cPennsylvania is working hard to stop the spread of invasive species such as spotted lanternflies, but they aren\u2019t the only pests that are harming Pennsylvanians,” Sunday said in a release. “Scammers peddling fraudulent trainings and fake permits do not help anyone keep their crops safe from this destructive species.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHP) \u2014 An Idaho man is accused of selling fake spotted lanternfly permits to Pennsylvania businesses,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":299333,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-299332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299332\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}