BRINNON — A Brinnon logger has been sentenced to a year in federal prison for poaching Olympic National Forest trees — one estimated to be more than 300 years old — for their wood to make musical instruments.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Tacoma said Reid B. Johnston was sentenced Friday for pleading guilty in November to thefts of 102 fir, cedar and maple trees between May 2009 and January 2010.
The 300-year-old Douglas fir had a trunk that was almost 7 feet in diameter, a U.S. attorney’s spokeswoman said.
The wood was cut into blocks and sold for the production of such musical instruments as guitars and cellos.
U.S. Attorney Jenny A. Durkan said the sentence for damage to government property also includes two years of supervised release following his yearlong prison term.
He also faces a restitution hearing next month.
The damage was estimated at more than $70,000, the market value of the trees poached, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
At sentencing Friday, U.S. District Judge Robert J. Bryan said this is a “very serious offense — he stole a public resource.”
According to records in the case, the trees were cut in Olympic National Forest’s Rocky Brook area of the Dosewallips River watershed above Brinnon.
During the hearing in November at which Johnston pleaded guilty, the 41-year-old new father told the court that he had turned his life around and was ready to live lawfully.
Through his attorney, he asked to be sentenced to the 32 days he had already spent incarcerated.
Johnston said he felled the trees in question while logging a parcel that he thought had been logged 25 years ago.
Prosecutors countered that Johnston had ample experience logging on the Olympic Peninsula and knew that the trees he was cutting were old growth.
The case was investigated by the U.S. Forest Service and prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Matthew Diggs.