DanG thieves

Texas Ranger · February 23, 2011, 05:07:29 PM

Not a real good pic, an old newspaper copy that was sent, the rest of the post is to broken up to copy and print. So a summary.

This is a case of absentee family members wanting to sell the timber on 18 acres from a larger tract with other folks owning the residual. Made a deal with a very experienced logger, who ended up cutting 36 acres, because "there weren't no land lines, just corner posts". timber at the time was around $340.00 per thousand board feet, and the loss was over $30,000.00.

I did the volume and value workup, and the local District Forester backed me up. We went to trial, and lost. The jury decided the logger was not smart enough to steal that much timber/value. Even after admitting he had cut the timber, it was no theft and the family filed in civil court. Never received a dime.

Our county has changed since then, and we prosecute to the full extent of the law, but there is still no accounting for a jury.

Lessons learned. Going into trial you load up on every possible ammunition you can find, or create. Work with and inform land owners about land lines, and casting your shadow on the land on a regular basis, and how to work in court.

We have slowed it down a lot, which is good, I am too DanG old to be clambering over log piles and brush.

crtreedude · February 23, 2011, 05:12:21 PM

Though MINAE, the government ministry in charge of the environment drives me to distraction sometimes (I have never known any group so bad about showing up when they are supposed to - and you can't move forward till they do.) they sure do handle poaching. And poaching here is a criminal offense with jail time, and confiscation of all the equipment.

isawlogs · February 23, 2011, 05:53:23 PM

I don't understand your law system, I really don't , a person gets burnt at McDonaldland and get awarded a milion or so $ , a person admits to stealing your lumber and you get nothing ... Would someone care to enlighten me .. Just saying here .. something sure don't sound right to my ears >:(

fishpharmer · February 23, 2011, 05:57:45 PM

Don, what a bummer. "The jury decided the logger was not smart enough to steal that much timber/value. "

Okay, that has me scratching my head. No offense to anyone personally, but I have learned to never underestimate the potential ignorance of a jury. That does not apply to all.

jim king · February 23, 2011, 07:52:30 PM

It takes a fool or a brave man to put his life in front of a group of people who were not smart enough to get out of jury duty.

Shotgun · February 23, 2011, 08:15:26 PM

Quote from: jim king on February 23, 2011, 07:52:30 PM
It takes a fool or a brave man to put his life in front of a group of people who were not smart enough to get out of jury duty.

:

:-\

Norm

Tom · February 23, 2011, 08:42:13 PM

I have run into that same mentality here when utility companies ran over and destroyed my newly planted pines. Not only did I get laughed at by the utility company but told that I should mow my "front yard" so that they would know not to drive over it. Contacting State Foresters and private foresters, I was told that there was no economic way of going after the vandals and I should just suck it up and forget the three years that were invested in the planting. "Pine trees have no value for at least five years", I was told. It's enough to make a grown man cry.

WDH · February 23, 2011, 10:21:03 PM

Tom, I will shed a tear too. That sucks.

Tom · February 23, 2011, 10:31:33 PM

Don, did you get any professional retribution from the incident? Over the years, what has happened to the logger? Was the land replanted? Did anyone acknowledge that the landowner had been ripped off? Did anyone help the landowner get re-established? Or, was the incident over with the legal decision and everyone walk away?

Texas Ranger · February 24, 2011, 12:03:57 AM

Don, did you get any professional retribution from the incident?

I was paid a reasonable consulting fee for the job, I discount fees on timber theft, they hurt my business as well. Also drew in more such jobs.

Over the years, what has happened to the logger?

Nothing, still in business, but at the lowest end, scrapping for the bigger guys.

Was the land replanted?

No, as it turned out, this was a minority family who had questionable representation on the sale, i.e., no forester, just an uncle that owned a farm up here. No effort was made to reclaim the forest.

Did anyone acknowledge that the landowner had been ripped off?

Every one involved acknowledge the theft, the jury nullified the case. The civil case, I think, failed from lack of follow through.

Did anyone help the landowner get re-established? Or, was the incident over with the legal decision and everyone walk away?

Minority family, not willing to put money into an asset that was 70 miles away and not behind a locked door. I vaguely remember the place may have been sold.

ISAWLOGS: Lots of us don't understand our legal system, but the jury has the final say in all cases, they could have appealed, but the climate back then was not in favor of pursuing timber thieves, we then worked on the legal system with the help of a couple of senators and changed the laws, making it easier to prosecute, and forcing a paper chain in timber sales, of course, the crooks don't use the paper chain, they parasite a legal logger, and haul under his contract, paying the legal guy a fee for using his paper work. We have managed to nail a few of the "legal" guys for this as a RICO type case.

fishpharmer: I know the jury foreman, and spoke with him after the trial, he could not understand the "not smart enough" defense in the jury room, but followed the majority. He was the floor foreman in a machine shop here in town and was losing time on the job. Or legal system can suck, but having seen it in other countries, I still like ours.

Jim King: You got that straight.

Texas Ranger · February 24, 2011, 11:56:53 AM

As requested by a couple of readers. The full article

Timber! Rustlers taking cut.

Authorities try to halt growing theft of trees

By Scott Harper
Post Environmental Reporter
July 4, 1994

Livingston - In a remote thicket near this placid mill town, tree stumps and rotting logs are the only clues to a mounting crime spree that borrows from both the Old West and modern technology.

The Texas Forest Service calls it timber rustling. Legally, the crime could be labeled larceny with a chain saw/

As authorities look on with rising concern, outlaw loggers across the East Texas piney woods are stealing trees with an increasing nerve and regularity from private land, then selling their booty for big bucks as high-demand lumber.

"The got away with about 18 acres worth," forestry consultant Don Staples said last week as he surveyed what rustlers stole from the thicket on the outskirts of Livingston, a hub for the $6 billion Texas timber industry.

"They cleared out the good pine and left the trash behind," Staples added, pointing to a few dead logs tossed into a clearing of rush grass and chiggers.

It is timber that the property owners will be hard pressed to recover. Asked its value, Staples winched. "Probably about $60,000," he sighed, noting that the absentee victim in the case is a Houston family.

They are not alone. In Polk County, near Lake Livingston, officials estimate that early 50 percent of absentee landlords live in Houston. Many inherited their property and often do not know its boundaries, let alone the amount and worth of timber there, officials said.

"As such , some may not even realize they have been "rustled" for months, or even years.

The fact that so much woodland is uninhabited and unwatched is one of two factors driving the rustling spree. The other, according to forest rangers and timber consultants, is the record high prices that Texas pine is fetching on the open market.

With huge amounts of Pacific Northwest tied up in litigation over the spotted owl and old growth forests, timber has become a scarce commodity. In response, the logging industry has turned to the South - including the 42 counties that comprise the East Texas timber country.

Here, pine trees for paper and housing construction can grow year-round. Logging trucks and heavy machinery are not encumbered by mountains or even big hills like in big timber states such as Oregon and Washington.

"Were pretty much of harvesting haven, a big tree farm in many respects ," said Bruce Miles, director of the Texas Forest Service, an affiliate of Texas A&M University.

The average price for 1,000 board feet of timber is about $340 - double what Texas pine brought 10 years ago and almost $60 more than last year.

With prices so high, a truck load of healthy pines can net a logger nearly $1,200.00. Loggers equipped with power winches and heavy-duty chain saws can collect that much timber in a matter of hours, officials said.

"It's like putting candy on the counter with kids around," said District forest ranger Mary Kay Hicks, headquartered in Livingston. "You tell them not to touch it, but it's there and no one's around. What would you do"? Its very tempting right now."

Miles said his agency has fielded more than 60 theft reports since the start of the year - and the hectic summer harvest season is only just now under way.

"Really, that's just the tip of the iceberg," Miles said. "These are just the cases that are reported. A lot of people don't even know, or are embarrassed to tell ;us, if they've been hit."

Part of the difficulty in curbing timber rustling is that property lines in laid-back East Texas often are not marked properly. That gives unscrupulous loggers the easy excuse that they simply didn't know they were cutting from the wrong lot.

Authorities described a typical scam: Loggers complete a legal contracted job on a tract, then cut an adjacent lot, too. They take both loads to the mill, where they sell them without questions under the one contract.

"In criminal cases, we have to prove they knowingly went over the line," said Wayne Coughran, assistant DA in Polk County. "But if there's no fences, no property surveys, and if loggers can say they just made a mistake, it becomes extremely difficult."

According to authorities and forestry agents, other recent rustling incidents include:

A Montgomery County land owner returned home from her job in Houston to find a logging truck leaving her property. The logger allegedly threatened her, saying "report me and you'll be sorry." She called the forest service and a case is pending.

In Shelby County, a logger cut timber for a Pasadena resident but never paid the "stumpage fee" after the job was completed. "Sue y insurance company." the logger reportedly told the absentee landlord.

In Polk County, a logger bought the rights to 20 acres of timber from an elderly Houston woman. He cut the trees and then cut another 20 acres next door. A case is pending.

Coughran said Polk County currently has five felony theft cases pending in court. He said he cannot remember one successful prosecution in his four years in Livingston.

Staples, a forestry consultant who estimates timber values in legal disputes, said county attorneys often advise this clients to skip criminal action and got civil court instead.

But recovering lost property there can be just as tough. "We lost a case in small-claims court because this guy didn't have a fence up," Staples recalled, "We're appealing."

The Texas Forest Service hopes the rash of rustling motivates state legislators to finally pass a timber theft law that would make it easier to prosecute thieves.

Miles points to a Louisiana law that requires guilty parties to pay victims three times the worth of stolen timber. In Texas, the ratio is one to one.

The Louisiana law also defines the offense as "timber theft" so prosecutors don't have to file cases as criminal trespassing or simple theft violations.

Ron Hufford, executive director of the Texas Forestry Association, whose 3200 members include loggers and mill owners, is not so sure new laws are the answer. To him, communication and reputation are the keys. (He is Executive Director of the Texas logging Council as well).

"Were encouraging our members to know who they're doing business with," Hufford said. "Like any industry, you're going to get some bad apples. We're seeing that now in ours."

Meanwhile, environmentalists are watching the trend nervously. They note that Texas already harvests 9 percent more of its forests than it grows each year, which effectively amounts to slow subtraction.

They also worry that rustling hastens environmentally reckless timbering Groups such as the Sierra Club for years have pressed loggers to use "best management practices" in which precautions are taken when cutting timber adjacent to sensitive streams.

Such practices are voluntary now in Texas, although other timber states require safe logging plans.

"I doubt these people even thing about the environment," Brandt Mannchen, a Sierra Club forestry activist, said of the rustlers. "I'd think they'd just yank it up and get the hell out."

chain · February 24, 2011, 06:33:28 PM

We've had our share of timber thefts over the years. All the old theives seem to have died off as have not seen a tree vanish in three decades. I have one 20"walnut that has miraculously escaped the moonlite chainsaw so far.

Our Dad had caught a fellow with the aid of a state forester stealing timber off about 40acres. The accused fellow came over to grandpa's house one Christmas to make ammends and hopfully pay some damages. He came in, a small fellow, with only one arm, he was also a preacher of one of the rural churches in the area. He began to talk and apologize and begged for forgivenous, saying, "he thought the forty belonged to his gramma." The preacher even broke down and began weeping that he could not afford to pay out...well, that did it, our Dad was a soft-hearted man and fell for the old timber thief's line, and told him "we'll let you off this time", but the old fellow in year's afterward continued to steal timber along the property lines, a thief is a thief.

SwampDonkey · February 24, 2011, 09:13:18 PM

Timber theft cases are rarely won here. When timber is hot the thefts are more common. Absantee owners living abroad are the first victims, followed by elderly and old widows, and those that have no interest in their woods other than a liquidation asset. I only remember one case that was won, that I recently read about in NS. The victim was a retired forester and he paid more for the cost to prosecute than he got back in restitution. He said he went ahead anyway on the principle and maybe set a precedent. We've had small volumes stole off the farm in remote corners we rarely ventured into, even across international boundaries. One guy logging in Maine one winter figured he owned some of our cedar. I kinda have suspect it was the fella whose hogs, cows and horses fed and tramped our crops all summer for the price of a couple of his hogs. :

We have not only seen the thefts, but intimidation and threats of bodily harm.

http://www.woodtheft.ca/e/2001e0582nr_e.htm

a letter from a widow woodlot owner

http://www.woodtheft.ca/e/report_e.htm#C

isawlogs · February 24, 2011, 09:50:14 PM

Is the line/border slashed at your place , here it is 20 or 30 feet wide ???

Texas Ranger · February 24, 2011, 09:53:25 PM

If you are asking about Texas, some and some not. We try to sell green fire breaks on exterior boundaries, but few see the value.

SwampDonkey · February 25, 2011, 05:08:56 AM

Quote from: isawlogs on February 24, 2011, 09:50:14 PM

Is the line/border slashed at your place , here it is 20 or 30 feet wide ???

66 feet wide like a road, makes it easy to move in and out fast. No one does it now, because the border agents fly the boundary 3 or more times a day.

I also have an issue with those guys that brush the line, they think they can make a road down through your plantation off the legal line boundaries. I was not pleased to see their new trail through my trees and cross a brook, that in itself a violation of the clean water act, let alone trespass and damages. Dad has had run ins with them in the past making a road through his potatoes to get to the border lines. They talk like they own the place. Find out if I confront them, I'll be taking names for starts. Bad enough when you have to battle beavers when trying to get some trees going on the shorelines of the brook and pond area.