Jay Christopher Humphreys: The Public Record

I · The Partnership

Two partners. One of them was on the ground.

In 2014, Jay Christopher Humphreys and Juan Garcia, Jr. (friends since the third grade) became fifty-fifty partners in a farming operation in San Quintín, Baja California.

The structure ran through three entities: JJ de Baja, LLC and JJ San Jose de Baja, LP in Texas, and San Jose Baja Ranch, S. de R.L. de C.V. in Mexico. The division of labor was simple. The Garcia family put in the money, more than $2.9 million at its peak. Humphreys ran the farm.

The operating agreement had one rule that mattered. Article 12 prohibited any member, manager or officer from “engaging in or participating in business ventures of any kind or description independently without adequate notice and opportunity for the other members, managers and officers to participate.”

Sources: 1, 4.

II · The Side Operation

August 2017

On August 10, 2017, Humphreys texted his partner about the season ahead: “We picked up 100 acres, which is what we can water. That is a good ground… Clean, tight operation.” Garcia replied, “Amen to that.”

On August 28, 2017, eighteen days later, he registered San Quintin Valley Farms, LLC with the Texas Secretary of State.

On August 31, 2017, he signed a $200,000 grower loan with Deardorff Family Farms (the partnership's principal customer) on behalf of that new company. The partnership's own credit line was cut from $600,000 to $400,000.

He did not offer his partner the opportunity to participate. Asked why, under cross-examination in December 2018, he answered: “Why would I do that when he tells me he wants to do less?”

That season the partnership had budgeted 400,000 units. It planted for 200,000 and yielded roughly 100,000. San Quintin Valley Farms yielded about 200,000.

Sources: 4, 6, 18, 19.

III · What He Agreed To

He consented to the judgments rather than try the case.

Garcia sued in Hidalgo County in January 2018. Humphreys removed the case into bankruptcy after filing Chapter 12 that December, four days after the receiver's representative arrived in Baja, and within days of a court-ordered deadline to produce hard drives, emails and financial records.

On December 19, 2019, the bankruptcy court signed and entered two agreed judgments against him. In consenting, Humphreys agreed to these stipulated facts:

“Jay Humphreys failed to adequately disclose his intent to open and operate San Quintin Valley Farms, LLC and San Quintin, Mexico prior to organizing and beginning operations.”

“The failure to adequately provide notice … resulted in a breach of his fiduciary duties … and as a result of the operations of San Quintin Valley Farms, Jay Humphreys, as a member of the partnership, used assets of the partnership for himself without authority to do so.”

Both judgments were stipulated to be non-dischargeable under 11 U.S.C. § 523(a)(4): fraud or defalcation while acting in a fiduciary capacity. He waived his right to appeal and his right to move for a new trial.

None of this rests on anyone's characterization. The consent, the statutory basis and every figure above appear in the motion Humphreys' own bankruptcy counsel filed on the public docket and served on the entire creditor body: Humphreys “consents to the entry of a non-dischargeable judgment against him based upon the provisions of 11 U.S.C. section 523(a)(4).”

Sources: 1, 2, 6, 15.

IV · The Bargain

He bought his partner out. Then he stopped paying.

The judgments were not a verdict. They were the price he agreed to pay for not honoring a deal.

Under the December 2019 settlement, Garcia sold Humphreys his entire interest in the farming operation. Humphreys agreed to pay for it through a confirmed Chapter 12 plan. The two judgments were signed and sealed: to be released only if he stopped paying.

As his own counsel's filing later put it: the benefit of the bargain was that “if Debtors do not pay Movants the purchase price, Movants would have their unsealed Agreed Judgment No. 1 and Agreed Judgment No. 2 to enforce.”

1. December 30, 2019

   The Second Amended Chapter 12 Plan is confirmed.

2. January 2020

   All plan payments made to all classes of creditors.

3. January 2021

   Partial payment only. Unfunded: the Mexican and U.S. trade creditors, and the plan payments owed to his own father.

4. June 2, 2021

   The Chapter 12 trustee moves to dismiss the case. His stated ground is one sentence: “Debtors have failed to make payments under the confirmed plan.”

5. August 6, 2021

   Humphreys agrees to a modified cure schedule totaling $2,263,405.86, payable through August 2025.

6. January 2022

   Delinquent $304,250.50.

7. February 10, 2022

   Last payment. Nothing after this date.

8. October 13, 2022

   Hardship discharge granted under 11 U.S.C. § 1228(b), the discharge available to a debtor who cannot complete the plan. The same day, the court unseals both agreed judgments for all purposes.

Sources: 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 17, 20.

V · The Arithmetic

What the discharge erased.

The standing Chapter 12 trustee certified under penalty of perjury that $8,712,317.25 in unsecured claims was discharged without full payment. Total paid into the case across its entire four-year life: $963,064.61.

Of the cure schedule Humphreys had agreed to fourteen months earlier, these installments fell due after the discharge and were never made:

Sources: 3, 5, 8, 9.

VI · The Creditors

Who actually went unpaid.

Humphreys scheduled 220 unsecured claims under penalty of perjury. Fewer than twenty of those creditors received a single dollar.

They are almost all in San Quintín, Ejido Leandro Valle, Camalú and Ensenada: seed and chemical suppliers, irrigation and equipment dealers, a welding shop, a gas company, the federal electricity commission, the national water commission, the Mexican social security institute, and dozens of individual farm workers.

Many are listed in the court's own mailing matrix with no street address at all. Just domicilio conocido: known address. It is how you send mail to someone in rural Baja who does not have a street.

The individual claims run from $139,763.06 down to $28.63, $6.11, and $1.77.

What the largest trade creditors actually recovered.

Eighteen creditors received a payment. Every other claim in the case received nothing at all. Of the businesses that filed a proof of claim, had it allowed by the court, and received a distribution, the recovery was roughly thirty-nine cents on the dollar.

The last line of that table is not a rounding error. AG Distribuidora filed its claim, the court allowed it in full, and it received nothing. So did Novagrosol, Iris Chemical and RDO Equipment de Mexico. Those creditors did everything the process asked of them.

Most creditors never got that far. The trustee's report shows that for the overwhelming majority of the 220 scheduled claims, no proof of claim was ever filed, including Radicle Seed Company, scheduled at $118,690.00, and Empaque San Quintín, scheduled at $88,616.99. In this case, creditors who did not file proofs of claim received no distribution, regardless of the amounts listed for them in the debtors' schedules.

That is the mechanism behind the promise. What Humphreys' counsel told the court was that “the claims allowed in such class will be paid in full.” Notice went out by first-class mail, in English, to the addresses in the court's matrix, many of which read only domicilio conocido.

Sources: 3, 10, 15, 16.

VII · The First Time

He had already done this once.

The Chapter 12 was not his first bankruptcy in the produce business. It was his second. The first one paid its creditors nothing at all.

On March 2, 2010, Jay C. Humphreys filed for Chapter 7 in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas, McAllen Division, Case No. 10-70166. He was discharged on December 2, 2010. The case remained open until February 24, 2012.

A repeat bankruptcy filer

Humphreys has sought federal bankruptcy protection twice. His first case was filed on March 2, 2010, and remained open until February 24, 2012. He filed his second bankruptcy on December 7, 2018, only six years and nine months after the first case closed.

1. March 2, 2010

   First bankruptcy filed

   Chapter 7, Case No. 10-70166

2. December 2, 2010

   Chapter 7 discharge entered

3. February 24, 2012

   First bankruptcy case closed

4. December 7, 2018

   Second bankruptcy filed

   Chapter 12, Case No. 18-10375

Humphreys is, in the ordinary sense, a repeat bankruptcy filer: he sought federal bankruptcy protection in 2010 and again in 2018.

That conclusion took nine months to reach. The trustee filed a report of no distribution, withdrew it, declared that there were potential assets, notified creditors to file claims, requested a certified claims register, and moved to compel turnover of records. She also moved to compel him to turn over records and documents; that motion was resolved in January 2012, when she advised the court it was moot “because the Debtor has complied with the Trustee's request.” She found nothing to distribute. Separately, a creditor bank examined him under oath three times in 2010. He was discharged regardless.

The creditors were the avocado trade: growers, packers and distributors in Michoacán, Mexico and in California.

An individual grower was owed a further $271,936.30. Total unsecured claims scheduled: $1,572,182.66. None of it was paid.

Testifying under oath on December 19, 2018 (on direct examination by his own attorney), Humphreys was asked about that business.

Q. And what happened to the avocado business?

A. The avocado business was a business I actually closed, and I filed bankruptcy because of it. It just didn't work out.

Q. And what type of bankruptcy was it, sir?

A. It was a Chapter 7.

Q. And what year was that?

A. I filed in 2009 I believe and then as — 2010 it was settled.

The docket says otherwise. He filed in March 2010, not 2009, and the case was not closed until February 2012.

That business was Avocado Importers International, Inc., doing business as Ultimate Avocado, of McAllen, Texas. The U.S. Department of Agriculture cited it for failing to pay $813,573.85 to five sellers across 35 lots of produce between December 2007 and October 2009. In the consent decision, the company admitted “willful, flagrant and repeated” violations of the Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act. USDA identified Jay C. Humphreys as its sole principal, barred the company from the produce industry until February 1, 2015, and barred Humphreys personally from employment or affiliation with any PACA licensee until February 1, 2014.

The same trade, twice.

Two different and complementary measurements separate the filings. From the first bankruptcy filing on March 2, 2010 to the second on December 7, 2018 is approximately eight years and nine months, filing to filing. From the formal closing of the first case on February 24, 2012 to the filing of the second is approximately six years and nine months, case closing to next filing. Both were in the produce trade. Both ended with substantial amounts owed to the people who had supplied him (growers, sellers, packers and laborers) remaining unpaid.

Sources: 3, 6, 11, 12, 24, 25, 26.

VIII · Now

Where he works, and what he ran for.

Rio Bank identifies Jay Humphreys as an Agricultural Loan Officer at its Harlingen Banking Center. The Texas Bankers Association – Ag & Rural Affairs Committee lists him as a member.

On May 2, 2026, he ran for a seat on the local drainage district board. He received 832 votes to Ronaldo “Ronnie” Garcia's 1,297: 39.08% to 60.92%, out of 2,129 votes cast. Both counts are reported as unofficial.

Those are the facts of his present position. Readers can weigh them against the record above without help.

Sources: 13, 14, 21.