Man ordered to pay $17,050 for logging wrong trees

BELFAST – Logger Michael Hamblet was fined $50 and ordered to make restitution of $17,000 after admitting to accidentally cutting trees from property he did not own.

Hamblet, 38, of Burnham, answered to the civil offense of unlawful cutting of trees when he appeared in 5th District Court in Belfast on Tuesday.

The Maine Forest Service charged Hamblet after determining that the approximately 1,700 spruce, fir and pines he felled March 11, 2002, in Thorndike belonged to someone else. Hamblet was unaware that the trees were cut from someone else’s property.

“This one was a rarity in that it was a total mistake,” said Maine Forest Service Ranger Joseph Pelletier.

The problem started when Hamblet acquired a piece of land from the town by quit-claim deed. Although the Thorndike tax map indicated that the parcel off Reid and Daggett roads totaled 25 acres, the parcel wound up having half that acreage. When the owner of the land, the Reid family of Thorndike, discovered that trees had been cut on their land, they notified the Forest Service.

“He basically ended up cutting on the wrong piece of property,” said district forester Patty Cormier. “The error on the tax map showed the lot was double its size.”

Pelletier and Cormier said the case ended up in court because the parties involved could not agree to a settlement. He said the $17,000 figure was reached by doubling the value of the stumpage cut from the land and adding the cost of a survey commissioned by the Reids that established the actual boundary of the parcels in dispute.

Members of the Reid family attended the hearing and nodded satisfaction to Judge John Nevison. In handing down the sentence, Nivisen emphasized that Hamblet’s logging from the Reids’ land was inadvertent. Deputy District Attorney Leane Zania agreed.

“There is no way the state could prove intent,” Zania told Nevison.