Wealth and hubris fuel the tale of a politically connected Missouri couple who allegedly poisoned their neighbor’s trees to secure their million-dollar view of Camden Harbor. The incident that was unearthed by the victim herself — the philanthropic wife of L.L. Bean’s late president — has united local residents in outrage.
To make matters worse, the herbicide used to poison the trees leached into a neighboring park and the town’s only public seaside beach. The state attorney general is now investigating.
“Anybody dumb enough to poison trees right next to the ocean should be prosecuted, as far as I’m concerned,” said Paul Hodgson, echoing the view of many exasperated residents in Camden, a community of 5,000 nestled at the foot of mountains that sweep upward from the Atlantic Ocean and overlook a harbor filled with lobster boats, yachts and schooners.
Amelia Bond, former CEO of the St. Louis Foundation, which oversees charitable funds with more than $500 million in assets, brought the herbicide from Missouri in 2021 and applied it near oak trees on the waterfront property of Lisa Gorman, wife of the late Leon Gorman, L.L. Bean’s president and grandson of L.L. himself, according to a pair of consent agreements with the town and the state pesticide board.
Bond’s husband, Arthur Bond III, is an architect and the nephew of former U.S. Sen. Kit Bond. Their summer home, owned by a trust, is situated directly behind Gorman’s home, farther up the hill.
Their summer home, owned by a trust, is situated directly behind Gorman’s home, farther up the hill.
Poisoned someone else’s trees, their property, and the beach and it was just for their summer home. :smh:
Throw the book at them.
An open and shut case as far as I can tell. You don’t have the right to destroy other people’s property.
Take that house so they never see that view again.
I’m with you on that. 👍
The perps have a whole bunch of money, tho’.
No they don’t. But they probably have the
rightwealth to get out of it with a fine that’s probably less than whatever interest is generated by their smallest savings account
Throw the book at them.
It’s extremely unlikely that this can be pinned on “them”. People this rich never do their own dirty work and give orders in ways that are deniable. Only exceptions are control freaks and idiots.
IANAL but I didn’t think you can hire someone to commit a crime for you without exposing yourself to a lot of liability. People are certainly prosecuted for hiring someone else to commit murder.
Except murder is always illegal. Spraying pesticides can be legal. They could claim they just hired someone to spray pesticides and it was that person’s responsibility to check the legality or other bullshit to avoid responsibility.
You can delegate responsibility but not accountability. The owners would still be accountable.
Didn’t read the article, did you?
Where are all the tree law people at?
treble damages
Can’t see the forest.
Oh bummer, usually them and bird law people are all over this type of thing
They are rich so they’ll reach an agreement between themselves likely before allowing application of the full extent of the law
However there should likely be state agencies or the EPA involved and directly penalizing them. They better not back off on it.
Replace the mature trees at any cost. If those don’t “take” do it again.
And again. And again. Until the soil accepts the fully mature trees.
Onve they’ve lost millions, I hope they’ll serve as a proper cautionary tale.
Right, they should personally hand dig a tree of equal size and pay for it to be transported and installed and cared for. As well as proper disposal of the poisoned tree and the surrounding areas that were poisoned. At the end they should have a nice view of the tree.
If the punishment for a crime is a set fine, then it is a law that targets only the poor; the wealthy will just pay that fine with the spare pennies at the bottom of their pocket as “a cost of doing business” and move on like nothing ever happened.
Are you a bot? This answer is so generic and not even addressing OP.
Are you a bot? This answer is so generic and not even addressing OP.
There is no Karma on Lemmy. You don’t need to add the “It’s just a fine for them. A business expense.”-comment on every other post related to capitalism. I’ve seen this exact comment a billion times and never has it added any value to the thread.
A repetition of the truth is always valuable. Not everyone fully understands how broken our society is. Even if just 0.1% read the comment and understand something new, it was valuable. Even if it’s just a reminder, it was valuable.
On the other hand, your comment is not valuable 100% of the time. Complaining about something generally true being there, which you could just ignore if you already know it, is absolutely useless. In fact, it’s even negative value, because if your complaint was followed and someone came to the thread without the knowledge, they’d be denied an opportunity to learn.
They should install a huge billboard now, like in this city when a similar thing happened
Billboards are also illegal in Maine.
How about a personal drive-in theater?
I was curious as to what herbicide was used. The Press Herald reports the herbicide used was Tebuthiuron - Wikipedia.
Well, the University of Missouri DID join the Southeastern Conference…
