Athletic feud on MDI runs afoul of the law

BAR HARBOR – A long-running feud between two local athletic organizations is expected to hit a low point next week when a member of one of the groups appears in court on criminal charges.

Mary P. Ropp, 23, of Bar Harbor is a recent graduate of College of the Atlantic and a member of Crow Athletics Running Club. She is facing felony charges in Hancock County Superior Court for allegedly tampering with the Web site of Eden Athletics, a rival running group that splintered off from Crow Athletics two years ago.

Ropp is due to appear in court in Ellsworth on July 20 as court officials determine the status of her case.

“This particular story is confusing because of the history of the two clubs,” Sgt. Shaun Farrar of the Bar Harbor Police Department said Friday.

Farrar, the investigating officer, said an administrative oversight of the Eden Athletics’ Web site preceded Ropp’s run-in with the law. She is accused of gaining unauthorized access to the Web site on two occasions in February, of tampering with it by deleting “building blocks” of the site, and by blocking Eden Athletics officials from gaining access to it, he said.

“The Web site was inaccessible to them for a couple of days,” Farrar said.

Ropp faces two felony charges of aggravated criminal invasion of computer privacy. She also faces two related lesser misdemeanor charges.

The relationship between the two running groups got on the wrong foot from the start, according to Eden Athletics member Brian Hubbell. Hubbell manages the group’s Web site and helped bring the alleged tampering of it to the attention of local police.

Hubbell said that the schism occurred in 2005 when the issue of trademarking the Crow Athletics name came up. Many members of the group, sensing a looming legal argument about who among them had claim to the name, decided to distance themselves from Crow Athletics and to form another group, he said.

“Who wants to pay lawyers over this?” Hubbell said. “It’s twisted. It really is. I think that’s where the passion comes into it.”

Gary Allen, founder and director of the Mount Desert Island Marathon and president of Crow Athletics, could not be reached Friday for comment.

A “virtual marathon of ugliness” between the two groups, as Hubbell called it, continued steadily downhill from mid-2005 until the alleged tampering in February. Since then, he said, the running clubs have left each other alone.

Farrar said that during his investigation, Crow Athletics officials claimed that someone had tampered with their Web site. That claim could not be verified, he said, and would have been too far back in the past to be relevant to Ropp’s case.

“That was years ago,” the officer said.

Even the year when Crow Athletics was founded is in dispute. Crow Athletics’ Web site indicates it was founded in 1991, but Hubbell said it has no organizational history before 2002.

Hancock County District Attorney Michael Povich declined Friday to comment on the case. Ropp’s attorney, Matthew Foster of Ellsworth, did not return a call seeking comment Friday.

In trying to explain the animosity that led to the alleged criminal behavior, Hubbell said runners tend to be passionate about the sport and are known for being able to tap into reserves of energy, regardless of whatever activity it may be devoted to. And the passion can cut both ways, he said.

“All you have to do is find out someone’s a runner and you trust them with your life,” he said.

But really, the running has nothing to do with the dispute, according to Hubbell. He said he has just as much passion for running as he has ever had.

“It could have been a group of poets and the same thing would have happened,” Hubbell said.