It has all the makings of a classic whodunit: allegedly shady deals, high-level government officials, private investigators, millions of dollars and, of course, a billion pounds of nonfat dry milk.

But what came next were years of federal agency red tape, being the subject of an undisclosed investigation and allegedly being put on a blacklist that later was said to never exist in the first place. Despite inquiries from the governor's office and Utah's congressional delegation on their behalf, the response from the U.S. Department of Agriculture about their actions toward the mill and ranchers has been nil.

Now, after "four years of frustration," Robinson and two ranchers are preparing the nuclear option: In the next several days, they will file a lawsuit in federal court for $40 million alleging that their plans to convert NDM into cattle feed was illegally thwarted at great cost to themselves.

In 2003 and 2004, the federal government approved the use of its massive cache of nonfat dry milk to feed beef cattle in states hit hard by drought, including Arizona, Idaho, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming. The drought was having a severe impact on the beef industry, forcing ranchers to sell off cattle prematurely and at lower weights.

The program allowed ranchers to request NDM based on how many cattle they had and where they lived. Utah, for example, was allotted 16 million pounds in 2003 and 6 million more in 2004. NDM is high in protein but difficult to use as food. In fact, feeding it straight to cows or sheep can kill them. Typically a feed company will mix it with alfalfa as a way to boost nutritional value.

There's also the problem of it being in powder form because it gets into machinery and is hard to feed to animals.

But Robinson's rancher associates -- who run R&J Feed -- claimed to have come up with a process with the help of a lab in Iowa that makes pellets out of the milk when combined with soy and wheat. It's a process other companies tried but failed to make work. The pellets reduce the mess and make it more digestible for cattle.

That's where the mill came in. Millions were spent on equipment to process the pellets, and they even got some milk to Salt Lake City. The two companies swear they jumped through all the hoops and had the blessing of the USDA.

"We never, ever sold a bag of milk that wasn't within the restrictions, the guidelines," said Jerry Goodwin, an Ogden rancher of 40 years and the "J" in R&J Feed.

The lawsuit will claim that the government put them on a blacklist and refused to ship them the milk. The USDA even went so far as to threaten action if they used the milk they had in a warehouse in Salt Lake, Robinson claims.

"It goes round and round and round and round and I can not penetrate it," he said. "I've got my teeth set, and we're not budging. This is not a way the government should treat its citizenry."

Crying over dry milk

Dry milk is expensive on the open market.

After the government released the milk at $1 per truckload of 22 tons, it was soon trading among ranchers, feed lots and brokers at hundreds of times that amount, the Washington Post reported in 2006. The USDA's milk was slated for beef cattle only in the drought states but soon found its way to other states for pigs and dairy cows. More shockingly, it was sold to other countries in some cases and also made its way into food for human consumption, for which it was never intended.

According to the Post, Robinson said at the time that the mill rebagged 5 million or 6 million pounds of the milk that eventually found its way to Mexico, though he said he didn't know the milk's final destination.

The milk was allowed to be traded within certain limits. It was OK for a farmer to get the milk and trade it to feed lots in return for a break on other kinds of feed or even for cash. Third-party brokers were also allowed to sell under specific conditions, and it was from those brokers that R&J and Robinson would get the milk to convert into cattle feed.

But somewhere along the line, they got swept up into investigations of misuse and the USDA told the third-party brokers they couldn't sell to R&J. Goodwin said he went so far as to hire a private investigator to track milk they were refused. It ended up in Minnesota or out of the country, he claims, instead of with their legitimate business.

"We tried to reason with them and show them where the milk was illegally used," he said of the USDA.

But they were repeatedly rebuffed and even threatened by the USDA with jail time, they claim.

The USDA's investigation of milk misuse in Utah has been referred to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Salt Lake City, said Tom Japhet of the Office of General Counsel in Denver, adding that stacks of paper "feet thick" were compiled. He said he couldn't release the names of those being investigated, deferring to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

"They are determining how they want to proceed with the matter," he said.

Melodie Rydalch, spokeswoman at the U.S. Attorney's Office in Utah, said they can neither confirm nor deny an investigation until charges are filed on the premise that it protects the reputation of anyone involved.

Time for the big guns

Confident they have done nothing wrong, the ranchers and Robinson have asked the Governor's Office and Utah's congressional delegation to clear the roadblocks or at least straighten out misperceptions.

"Some serious concerns have been raised, and our efforts to date have been to ensure that those concerns are being heard and, as appropriate, investigated," said Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah. "Obviously, to the extent that either the Justice Department or the Office of the Inspector General are involved, we cannot nor should not interfere. However, Congress does have an oversight responsibility regarding the drought assistance program and how it was administered."

Robinson, Goodwin and Carter are tired of waiting. Last year they filed a tort claim against the federal government alleging they were out millions because access to NDM was illegally cut off.

That claim was rejected, and so after a mandatory six month waiting period, they'll be filing a lawsuit.

"I'm just a flour miller," said Robinson. "We're trying to figure out ways to reinvent ourselves and be around for another 100 years."