Man arrested for holding up aloe farmer at gunpoint

Matthew Paul Brown

MERCEDES — Police arrested a man Wednesday for allegedly tying up an aloe vera farmer here in shrink wrap last year and forcing him at gunpoint to sign over the hand sanitizer business the men founded at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

Matthew Paul Brown, 36, is charged with one count of aggravated robbery and one count of forgery of a financial instrument. He was still being held at the Hidalgo County jail Saturday with bonds totaling $35,000.

A civil suit filed last year describes how John Sigrist, owner of a farm called Aloe King, was approached by Brown in March of last year with a business opportunity.

The suit says Brown proposed he and Sigrist team up “to use the farm’s aloe vera to produce hand sanitizer, which was to be manufactured, packaged, and distributed using Aloe King’s existing infrastructure.”

The men agreed to split the profits from the enterprise 50/50, the suit said. At first things appear to have gone well.

A Mercedes Economic Development Corporation release from May of last year describes Brown as a San Antonio businessman with a background in investment banking and health care. The release describes the hand sanitizer business as having greenhouses, a retail shop, a warehouse and a chemist lab. It describes business booming for the young company, which was shipping out 30,000 of 2- and 8-ounce bottles of sanitizer weekly, mostly to hospital companies.

“If we increased our production 10 times, there would still be a need for more product,” the release quoted Brown saying. “The demand is so high right now.”

The pandemic tycoons may have been raking in the dough, but the books weren’t looking right to Sigrist.

Although the men were grossing significant sums of money, they weren’t netting nearly as much, the civil suit claims.

Rows of aloe are seen at Aloe King’s Mercedes farm. (Courtesy: Development Corporation of Mercedes)

The farmer began to suspect Brown was swindling him through forged checks and records. Sigrist removed Brown’s access to the business’s bank account, the suit says, and on the first of August of last year things went south.

According to arrest records, Brown asked Sigrist to meet him at the office that day to be introduced to a potential investor.

Sigrist told Hidalgo County sheriff’s deputies that when he got to the meeting he noticed a third man, who was called George.

From there things got out of hand.

Brown began telling Sigrist that he was messing with the wrong people, and that “the money belonged to the cartel.”

The arrest records say Sigrist tried to get up at that point and George pulled a gun, pointing the silver-plated pistol at his head.

The men tied Sigrist up with shrink wrap and Brown placed a bag over his head, arrest documents say, using a wet-dry vacuum to momentarily suffocate him.

Sigrist claims in his civil suit that George threatened to “blow (his) f—–g brains out” if he didn’t sign 30 blank checks.

“Fearing for his life, Mr. Sigrist obliged,” it reads.

Aloe King sells aloe gels and juices at its Mercedes farm. (Courtesy: Development Corporation of Mercedes)

Brown also demanded Sigrist sign a four-page employment contract naming the businessman as the CEO of the company.

The civil suit alleges Sigrist balked at doing that, until Brown claimed he had been having Sigrist’s daughter followed. Brown claimed there were henchmen outside her home at that moment who would kill her if he didn’t comply, it says.

Sigrist signed the paperwork without reading it.

Arrest records say investigators talked to employees of Brown who claimed he confessed to tying up Sigrist and holding him at gunpoint. The records also say one of Sigrist’s employees saw the shrink wrap used to restrain Sigrist and the vacuum used to suffocate him when she was cleaning the office the next day.

Over the past year, Sigrist has amended his civil suit to include a total of 11 defendants in addition to Brown.

Sigrist claims, among other things, that those individuals and businesses were aware of Brown’s alleged scheme. He’s suing for monetary relief of over $1 million.

A jury trial is set for January.