TACOMA — A Quilcene man was sentenced in federal district court Tuesday to 18 months in prison for his part in the theft of maple trees from Olympic National Forest.
John Mark Randall, 50, also was sentenced to three years of supervised release and $8,808 in restitution for conspiracy, damaging government property and theft of government property during the hearing in U.S. District Court in Tacoma.
A federal jury convicted him on April 15 after a two-day trial.
Prosecutors said he hired young men to poach high-quality maple trees from the Penny Creek area of the Hood Canal Ranger District of the Olympic National Forest, said Emily Langlie, U.S. Attorney’s Office spokeswoman, in a statement.
The wood from such trees is used in making musical instruments.
U.S. District Judge Robert J. Bryan said during the sentencing that, “Randall thought he’d do something a little shady to make a buck,” but that he soon found out that there were serious consequences.
The late National Forest Service Officer Kristine Fairbanks, who was murdered while on duty on Sept. 20, 2008, near Sequim, was the lead investigator on this case at the time of her death.
Officer Anne Minden then took over.
Testimony at trial and records filed in the case gave the following account:
Randall trained three men to recognize and harvest high value maple wood for use in musical instruments.
During a 2008 investigation, National Forest Service investigators found that he allowed the thieves to use his state harvesting permit to sell some of the illegally harvested maple to a local sawmill.
“Randall knowingly served as a middle man for selling illegally-harvested maple,” Langlie said.
When a sawmill worker discovered that the wood had been harvested on National Forest and not on private land as stated in the permit, he alerted law enforcement.
Randall “stole old growth maples from the national forest,” Special Assistant United States Attorney Johanna Vanderlee said in her sentencing memo to the court.
“He taught younger men in his community to steal, rather than hiring them and teaching them how to run a legitimate logging business.”
The other three men charged in the case were sentenced May 7.
Both Justin and Travis Reeves, who are brothers, were sentenced to one year of probation, 50 hours of community service to be completed within one year with a fine waived, and $2,202.00 restitution.
Andrew Post was sentenced to one year of probation; with a fine waived and $2,202.00 restitution.
