ELLSWORTH – A man from Seboeis Plantation pleaded guilty Friday to not paying a landowner for timber he harvested from the landowner’s property in Dedham, according to law enforcement officials.

John Buck, 35, had signed a contract to harvest trees from land owned by John Darty of New Smyrna, Fla., the Maine Forest Service wrote Friday in a prepared release. Buck, however, did not pay Darty for three loads of trees he took to log yards in Bucksport and Hermon, the statement indicated.

Ranger John Cousins used delivery documents at the log yards to determine that the landowner never was paid for the three loads, which the yards received in March and April. The value of the three loads was more than $1,500, according to the forest service.

District Ranger Jeff Currier said Friday that Buck will not get any jail time, but was ordered in Ellsworth District Court to pay a $1,000 fine. Buck already has reimbursed Darty for the trees, he said.

Currier said a new law passed by the Legislature in 2006 makes it easier for the forest service to pursue and help resolve these types of cases. Loggers have a maximum time frame of 45 days in which they must pay landowners for the wood they harvest. Previously, there was no such time frame, he said.

“By having this law, forest rangers can investigate cases, request prosecution at the District Court level, and collect restitution for landowners upon conviction in a relatively short period of time,” Currier stated in the release.