- Harold Clause Kupers, a wood buyer and mill owner in Washington state who pled guilty last November to violating the Lacey Act, has been sentenced to prison time.
- The Winlock, Washington wood buyer was handed a sentence of six months in prison and six months of home detention followed by three years of supervised release, plus a $159,692 fine, for violating the Lacey Act by trafficking in bigleaf maple illegally cut on national forest land.
- Between April 2012 and March 2014, Kupers sold illegal timber to instrument makers in other states for total revenues of $499,414.
Harold Clause Kupers, a wood buyer and mill owner in Washington state who pled guilty last November to violating the Lacey Act, has been sentenced to prison time.
This is the first time that the Lacey Act, which was amended in 2008 to prohibit the trade in illegally sourced wood, has been applied in a case of illegal interstate timber trading.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Washington, Kupers was sentenced yesterday in the U.S. District Court in Tacoma. The Winlock, Washington wood buyer was handed a sentence of six months in prison and six months of home detention followed by three years of supervised release, plus a $159,692 fine, for violating the Lacey Act by trafficking in bigleaf maple illegally cut on national forest land.
“As long as unscrupulous mill owners like this defendant create a market for poached wood, our protected forests are at risk,” U.S. Attorney Annette L. Hayes said in a statement. “This defendant was effectively a ‘fence’ for stolen goods. In his case not stolen jewelry or electronics, but stolen publicly owned and irreplaceable natural resources.”
Records in the case show that U.S. Forest Service investigators met with Kupers in April 2012 and informed him that he was required by Washington law to review Specialized Forest Products Permits whenever he purchased bigleaf maple (Acer macrophyllum), a rare tonewood prized by musical instrument makers.
Despite the warning, Kupers continued purchasing bigleaf maple without a Specialized Forest Products permit from three different harvesters, all of whom have pled guilty to stealing the wood from Gifford Pinchot National Forest in Washington state. Between April 2012 and March 2014, Kupers sold this illegal timber to instrument makers in other states for total revenues of $499,414.
Kupers was the alleged leader of the illegal timber smuggling ring, having taught the three other defendants to identify and harvest the most desirable trees, known as “figured” bigleaf maple due to the distinctive distortions in their wood grain.
One of Kupers’ co-defendants has also been sentenced to a six-month prison term, while another received a 15-month sentence. The third co-defendant will be sentenced in June.
Environmentalists called the sentencing a significant development, as it shows renewed interest by the U.S. Department of Justice in pursuing custodial sentences for Lacey Act violations and ensuring that buyers and sellers of illegal timber are held just as liable as the people who actually cut the trees down.
In handing down the sentence, U.S. District Judge Benjamin H. Settle didn’t mince words, telling Kupers: “You were a central figure in what made this all work… You knew you were getting stolen wood, but you hid behind ignorance.”