Iowa farmer claims oil company rep offered him a teen sex worker

Hughie Tweedy is an Iowa farmer whose land lies right in the path of a new pipeline proposal. It's called the Dakota Access Pipeline and it would funnel crude from the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota through South Dakota and Iowa for processing in Illinois.

There's money for landowners who sign over rights to allow the pipeline company to get to work. But Tweedy's refusing all offers.

But when he told the pipeline representative that he's not interested in money, Tweedy says they tried to tempt him with something else.

"He offered me women," Tweedy tells As It Happens host Carol Off. "Not once, not twice, but three times. In the third time, a $1,200 teenage prostitute." Tweedy was told she was 18 years of age.

He says that he recorded the third offer with a hidden digital recorder.

Energy Transfer Partners, the company responsible for the Dakota Access Pipeline, issued a statement in response: "We are aware of allegations that have been made concerning the conduct of an employee of one of our contractors . . . We take these types of matters very seriously and are investigating further."

Tweedy says he went public with his accusation in hopes that the state will pass a bill which would make it more difficult for the pipeline to seize properties.

"I'm not for sale," Tweedy adds. "I had told my pipeline representative that I wouldn't sell [him] one blade of grass for a million dollars.

"This bunch from the pipeline cartel — what I call 'em — is just a bucket of snakes and you can't tell which head belongs to which tail. Their damage control will be all deniability. They'll say, well, that's not our contractor . . . that's not our this, not our that."

Tweedy's lawyer has asked him to not share the recording, and he's seeking liability protection from the Iowa attorney general before he releases it.

"I was raised here, I grew up here, I've always lived here," he says of his property. "This farm is not for sale to a private company for their profit. It is just not. I am not going to allow it."