COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) – An egg farmer with a history of environmental violations in Iowa knew Ohio agriculture officials wouldn’t let him buy the largest egg farm in their state, so he didn’t try, his son said.

Instead, Austin “Jack” DeCoster opted to invest $110 million in Ohio Fresh Eggs, which has been fined for problems controlling rodents and insects. Now that state regulators have found out about the Iowa farmer’s involvement, they accuse the company of hiding his management role and are trying to revoke the company’s permits, forcing the business to close.

DeCoster’s son, Peter, said his father is not involved in any day-to-day decisions with Ohio Fresh Eggs’ 12 farms, which have millions of hens in Licking, Hardin, and Wyandot counties.

Peter DeCoster said his father put up the money last year to help the owners of Ohio Fresh Eggs – Donald Hershey and Orland Bethel – buy the company from Buckeye Egg Farm, which was repeatedly fined for environmental problems.

The DeCoster family owns more than 13 million chickens in Maine and Iowa and is among the nation’s largest egg producers.

The DeCosters were sure Ohio’s difficult permitting process would keep them from being able to buy the company, Peter DeCoster told The Columbus Dispatch at an interview in Iowa.

“They wouldn’t have approved my father,” Peter DeCoster said. “We didn’t want to go through all the scrutiny in the press.”

In September, Ohio agriculture officials accused Hershey and Bethel of failing to list DeCoster as a controlling manager with Ohio Fresh Eggs. The state requires all managers to be identified on permit applications so it can run background checks, Agriculture Department spokesman Bill Schwaderer said.

Agriculture officials learned of Austin DeCoster’s role this year while checking inaccuracies on company permits, Schwaderer said. Ohio Fresh Eggs has until the end of October to file an appeal.

“It will be filed,” company spokesman Harry Palmer said Monday.

Palmer denied the state’s assertion that Ohio Fresh Eggs hid DeCoster’s involvement with the company to avoid a background check, DeCoster was not listed because he is not involved in running the farms, he said.

In June, the state fined the Ohio Fresh Eggs $212,000 for failure to control insects and rodents, and in August the state issued an emergency order to control flies and repair water leaks at its Croton hen barns.

In the late 1990s, Iowa classified Austin DeCoster as a habitual violator of environmental regulations for problems that included manure runoff into waterways. The label made him subject to increased penalties and prohibited him from building new farms.

The label expired in 2004, and DeCoster has had no violations since, Iowa agriculture officials said.

Peter DeCoster said his family has embraced new technology that helps keep their farms clean and neat. New barns have giant air vents that dry manure immediately, eliminating a potent breeding ground for flies.

Despite the clean record in recent years, Bob and Rosella Bear, who live near Ohio Fresh Eggs farms in Wyandot County, said they don’t want the DeCosters to have any involvement with the company because of the past problems.

The Bears have a long history of complaints with the Ohio egg farm, especially when it was owned by Buckeye Egg, whose owners paid millions of dollars in fines and settled lawsuits with neighbors who complained for years about fly and rodent infestations, foul odors and polluted streams.

“It just seems from what we’ve read that he (Austin DeCoster) is cut from the same cloth,” Bob Bear said.

That comparison is unfair, Peter DeCoster said.

“My dad has become the poster child of bad agriculture,” he said. “All we want is to be treated fairly, like everybody else.”