Vermont Timber Theft on National Forest- Someone really wanted to get busted

[peakbagger]

Windham County man faces federal charges for cutting down 300 trees in Green Mountain National Forest | Local News | reformer.com

I think the term "contrary by nature" may apply to the guy who is in hot water.

[Log-it-up]

It's a lot of wasted time to make a couple thousand dollors

[BargeMonkey]

 Be a slap on the wrist and more money in legal fees than the wood was worth. If you read closely they wacked him pretty good for stripping the piece prior, under a tax program, known as 480A here in NY. It happens all the time people just don't hear about it, they personally named a family here in Blenhiem when NY changed the timber theft laws a while ago, steal off private, state, didn't matter. In the end the old man's medical bills cost the county to much money to keep him locked up, they got away with it.

[Log-it-up]

I'm sure it happens more than people hear about, I was a professional witness in a deposition this past fall about some one cutting over the line, couple years ago there was a big to do on the news about a couple brothers that logged stealing timber, wasn't the first time I think the judge ordered them not to harvest timber in vt anymore plus fines

[AndyVT]

A couple of brothers down the road from me were cutting and stealing hardwood logs from the state forest across from my property. They were pretty obvious about it so I gave the county forester a call who contacted the state game warden, who has law enforcement power. The warden staked out the cutting location and caught one brother. The other brother was caught selling logs at the buyers yard. Long story short, they gave the brother who was selling some jail time but essentially let the cutting brother off as far as I could tell since I saw him back at his home just a few days later.

[Ron Scott]

I've been involved in the investigation of a number of timber theft cases as a USFS forester and as a private consulting forester and the law usually wins with some penalties being heavier than others depending upon the resource values and damages involved.

[Texas Ranger]

Like Ron, I worked a number of timber thefts, a fellow forester commented that I developed a "cottage industry" from the number I handled.  Our biggest asset was the county sheriff, the juries on the other hand were temperamental.  Had one jury on what we thought was an open and shut case declare the thief was "not smart enough to steal that much timber".  We won most, but the loses were frustrating.

[moodnacreek]

That is called 'cutten off the hooker lot' up north.  At least it was not private property.  Theses stories often come my way always after the fact. Vermont seems to be a hot bed for timber theft especially for out of state land owners not to say N.Y. is any better.

[barbender]

 This is interesting to me, as timber theft isn't something you see much of around here. There's probably a couple of reasons for that- first, MN has a lot of low value/volume pulp species. Most of the time you don't have a situation where you will cross a property line and get a few high value saw logs etc. Why risk it for 5 cords of aspen pulp?

Second, the cases I've seen prosecuted the perpetrators really got the book thrown at them. There was a father and son about 4-5 years back that were convicted of timber theft, off Federal property I think. It was felony level, they may have even got to go to the Big House for a bit. I'll see if I can find the story.

[quilbilly]

People steal music wood around here and once in a while shake bolts. No one really cares much, especially the old loggers who used to work in the woods before they shut em down. The only time a fuss really gets made is when some druggy starts a fire like happened a few years ago.

[barbender]

 I couldn't find the one I was thinking of, but here's a story about someone who got nailed for stealing what are known as "spruce tops".

Spruce tops are harvested off of stunted black spruce in swamps. The state and counties actually sell blocks of them, set up like normal timber sales. I've never harvested them myself, but people make out decent at it. Slogging around in a spruce swamp in rubber boots in October never interested me enough to try it🙂

This guy made the additional screw up of stealing these tops off of Federal land, so he ended up federally charged and sentenced.

https://www.justice.gov/usao-mn/pr/itasca-county-christmas-tree-thief-pleads-guilty

[Ron Scott]

Most of the timber theft here involves hardwood grade and veneer logs. In some high value log areas where theft may be expected, the USFS uses special tree marking paint with an identifier in it.

[moodnacreek]

What happens here is a land owner gets a 'logger' that has a good line of bull. The land owner thinks he can control the logger and get his fair share, ha ha.  When the job is finished or should I say the logger has left, the neighbor's walnut is also gone.