DIAMOND POINT — An Elma man was sentenced Tuesday to two months in prison for paying to have a tree housing a bald eagle nest at Cat Lake cut down about five years ago.
Timothy Allen, 52, also was sentenced to four months of supervision on a home monitoring system after he is released from prison.
Allen, owner of Allen’s Forestry Services, was sentenced for ordering a subcontractor — whom he paid $500 — to cut down a tree with an eagle’s nest near Cat Lake — on the Miller Peninsula between Sequim Bay and Discovery Bay — where he was working to develop the property in 2004.
The land is now in private land trust.
Emily Langlie, public affairs officer for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, said that Allen originally had denied involvement.
Why so late?
“That is part of the reason it took so long [for this case to come to a conclusion] — he took numerous actions to obstruct law enforcement,” Langlie said.
The site of the felled tree contained bones, feathers, egg shells and sticks, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a prepared statement.
Felling the tree was a violation of the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, Langlie said.
The Sequim subcontractor, O’Dell Logging, was cited and fined $1,500, which has already been paid, Langlie said.
Magistrate Judge Karen L. Strombom told Allen that, because of Allen’s efforts to obstruct the investigation, she had no choice but to send him to prison, the statement said.
“You signed an affidavit under oath and still would not tell the truth,” she said.
In December 2008, Allen entered a plea of guilty to knowingly taking, or causing others to take, a bald eagle nest.
Assistant U.S. Attorney James Oesterle asked Strombom to sentence Allen to prison time, saying that he was aware of the illegality of his actions.
“Despite this knowledge, or more likely because of this knowledge, he undertook a concerted effort to rid the site of the tree in an effort to avoid imposition of a Bald Eagle Management Plan and the associated use restrictions,” Oesterle wrote.
“This heightened knowledge underscores the need to hold professionals, such as Mr. Allen, accountable for their choices and impose sentences that reflect those decisions.”
Bald eagles are protected by both state and federal law. In July 2007, the bald eagle was removed from protection under the federal Endangered Species Act. However, two other federal laws still provide protection for the bald eagle, the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.
Allen will begin serving his sentence sometime at the beginning of August, Langlie said.
