BUCKSPORT, Maine — A Bucksport landowner says father and son loggers harvested $5,000 worth of lumber from her 98-acre lot without paying.
Maine Forest Ranger John Cousins issued summonses to Paul MaGuire and his son, David, both of Prospect, on charges of failure to pay for trees harvested. The two will be arraigned Sept. 18.
Bucksport landowner Kelly Hannaford said she contracted the father and son in January and that they quickly stopped paying for the wood she says they took off her land.
“I stopped getting paid but noticed the wood was still leaving,” Hannaford said Wednesday. “Every single week there were different excuses. Skidder breakdowns, sick kids, bad weather, you name it.”
Hannaford said this year is her fourth harvest, but the first year she had contracted the MaGuires. In April, after an alleged period with no contact with the MaGuires, she contacted Cousins, who has been investigating the alleged theft since.
Maine law requires loggers to pay landowners for lumber within 45 days of delivering the wood to a handling or processing facility. Failure to pay for trees harvested carries a maximum fine of $1,000, plus restitution based on handling or processing facility receipts.
Follow Mario Moretto on Twitter at @riocarmine.
Thieves.
Hey mario,
Loggers harvest wood or trees or timber. Lumber is the product of sawmills. Lumber doesn’t grow in the forest, trees do.
Thanks
Then let’s stop the semantical nitpicking and call it board feet stumpage…
Do you stick scale your hardwood pulp?
On the yard we did. It was by weight at Millinocket or Lincoln.
Someone cut on my property once and they knew it. They contracted with a neighbor to harvest their wood.. they paid dearly for it because I was filing charges for theft of wood I did not want cut.
I am the land owner. And $5000.00 is not more then I am owed. A complete investigation has been done. The $5000.00 is from scale slips that the Maguire’s took to the mill and kept the funds along with the slips. I have text messages where they claim to owe me for tow loads of wood which equaled a couple hundred dollars. These slips are from January to April. I receieved text messages from the son from 9pm-midnight on the day they found out a ranger had been called in. I have those texts still. I was even blamed for the skidder break downs. I even had a load of wood off loaded at Paul Maguire’s home and found that when I asked why there was no slip for birch. I was told the mill was closed and it was unloaded at Paul’s home. Never should have happened. I did not receive any payment until the media got involved. Once this article was written I received a payment for $1000.00 towards restitution. Up until I got the media involved there was no attempt to make restitution. I challenge Paul to his story of intending to pay. His claim he is paying more then he owes. The slips from the yardsw tell the story…So does my wood lot and anyone that would like to visit it feel free to contact me and lets walk. They left trash everywhere and when questioned about it the son asked me if I wanted litter clean up or money. I stand by my claims and the documentation backs it…..
You make an interesting case. In the interest for us that don’t know ( and why should we), I’d like to know his side. Your’s sounds like what I used to deal with sometimes.
As far as “His claim he is paying more then he owes.” goes, isn’t that ‘like the check is in the mail’? Like I said, we don’t know each side of the story……