Man caught cutting wood from bridge goes to prison, WA officials say. ‘Sorry, not sorry’
A man caught cutting chunks of cedar from a Washington bridge has now been sentenced to prison, officials say.
A hunter reported hearing the sound of chainsaws in the Clearwater area in Jefferson County on Oct. 22, the Washington Department of Natural Resources said.
An officer responded to the area, which was behind a locked gate. But the locks were found broken, the state agency said.
The officer saw logs of freshly cut cedar wood near a vehicle where two men were sitting inside, the agency said.
Officials said the men were “cold, wet, covered in cedar sawdust and smelled of chainsaw gas.”
The 63-year-old man in the car is accused of telling the officer “this is corporate bull----, this bridge is just rotting away.” He also said he was “sorry, not sorry” about cutting the wood from the bridge, officials said.
He was sentenced to nearly 18 months in prison and ordered to pay over $20,000 in restitution on March 4, officials said. He was convicted of malicious mischief, theft and trafficking stolen property.
The other man was sentenced to 12 months of community custody on Feb. 25 and ordered to pay $20,000 in restitution because he was a first-time offender, officials said.
Community custody is “essentially probation” and requires a person to follow the rules set in the court decree, Kenny Ocker, a spokesperson for the state agency, told McClatchy News.
Officials said the men would have sold the poached wood on the black market “for mill owners to turn them into shake and shingles.”
The bridge is on H-3500 Road, a forest road, Ocker told McClatchy News in October.
Clearwater is west of Seattle on the Olympic Peninsula, Ocker said, about 47 miles south of Forks.
This story was originally published March 8, 2022 at 1:38 PM with the headline "Man caught cutting wood from bridge goes to prison, WA officials say. ‘Sorry, not sorry’."
