Vandals seen on Fairfield surveillance camera

OAKLAND – The presence of three people wearing ski masks was caught on a security camera Monday night when vandals damaged Plum Creek’s headquarters in Fairfield with paint, the same night five other locations also were vandalized, according to a company official.

A copy of the surveillance tape and other evidence have been turned over to the FBI, which is assisting state, county and local police to find out who terrorized one family and left three homes and three businesses damaged late Monday night or early Tuesday morning.

Vandals have targeted the Seattle-based company several times since earlier this year it announced a 426,000-acre development and conservation plan for the Moosehead Lake region. This is the first time families were the victims.

In the latest incidents, the vandals apparently thought all of the damaged properties were associated with Plum Creek as slogans and obscenities aimed at the company were left at two locations, one a Hallowell home that has no connection with the Seattle-based timber company. The other property, Muzzy’s Real Estate in Greenville, which had handled the company’s sale of lots on First Roach Pond, has since been sold.

“We want to catch these people, we want to prosecute them, and we want to put them in jail so they know Maine is not a place where this sort of activity is allowed,” Patrick McGowan, Department of Conservation commissioner, said Friday.

McGowan said the department itself was targeted by vandals in the late 1980s or early 1990s when the state began timber harvesting on public lots near Tumbledown Mountain, north of Weld. He said a stink bomb was used in the attack and the building was spray-painted.

He noted, however, that these attacks victimized families.

All officials who work for the conservation department have been advised of the vandalism, from field foresters to forest rangers, the commissioner said.

Police believe the attacks that involved the Oakland home of Jim Lehner, the company’s regional manager, the Augusta law office of Preti Flaherty Beliveau Pachios and Haley, whose partner Severin Beliveau serves as the company’s attorney, Beliveau’s neighbor’s home in Hallowell, the Greenville home of Luke Muzzy, the company’s senior land asset manager, the Fairfield company office and the Greenville real estate office were conducted by the same group of individuals.

A similar-colored orange paint that apparently was contained in Christmas balls and light bulbs was used at all locations in the vandalism spree.

Anyone who may have seen any suspicious activity in any of these locations Monday night or early Tuesday morning is urged to contact the local police department, the county sheriff’s department or the Maine State Police.