A former president of a Western Slope landowners association was recently sentenced to a year of probation and ordered to pay $30,000 in restitution for illegally building a road on Forest Service land, a news release from the U.S. Attorney for Colorado said Monday.
Earl Bennett, 72, had pleaded guilty to a Class B misdemeanor for using a bulldozer in June 2014 to plow a road near the Cathedral Peaks Subdivision near Crawford. The road, on Forest Service land and adjacent to the subdivision, was nearly a mile long.
Along with soil and rock removal, numerous oak trees were cut and the hillside was weakened, threatening a home below the damaged area, the news release said.
Bennett was president of the Cathedral Peak Ranch Landowners’ Association at the time.
“Destroying public land is selfish and steals from all of us,” U.S. Attorney Bob Troyer said. “The U.S. Attorney’s Office works together with the Forest Service and local law enforcement to protect our public land.”
