Fisherman to plead guilty to stealing trees from Tongass National Forest

Yellow cedar trees are seen in this Creative Commons-licensed photo by Richard Droker on Oct. 24, 2015. (Richard Droker photo)

By James Brooks

Alaska Beacon

A commercial fisherman in Kodiak will plead guilty to stealing 16 yellow cedar trees from the Tongass National Forest in Southeast Alaska.

Mitchell Keplinger, charged with theft of government property in April, was scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska on Wednesday for his formal arraignment.

Keplinger signed a plea deal the day after he was charged. Under the terms of the deal, he will avoid jail time but will pay $85,682.17 in restitution and be on probation for three years, a term that may later be reduced to no less than 18 months.

That would be significantly lower than the maximum penalty for theft of government property, which can be punished by up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.

Keplinger’s attorney did not return a phone call seeking comment on Wednesday.

According to the text of the plea deal, Keplinger and his boat, the 54-foot seiner Alinchak, were working in the Sitka herring seine fishery in late March and early April 2024. After the fishery closed, Keplinger used his boat and crew “to harvest Alaska yellow cedar trees on U.S. Forest Service lands near Sawmill Creek, Sugarloaf Mountain and in and around Sitka Sound.”

The plea deal states that Keplinger knew that a permit was required to cut the trees and knew that he did not have that permit.

“Keplinger’s crew, who were cutting the trees at his direction, had covered one of the stumps with moss to conceal the theft,” the plea deal states.

Paul Robbins, a spokesman for the U.S. Forest Service in the Tongass, said by email that yellow cedar “is important culturally, ecologically, and economically. Its strength is seen in durable wood products from canoe paddles to engineered timber frames and the unique rot-resistant chemistry of its heartwood allows it to live for over 1000 years and to persist long after death as sequestered carbon.”

The 16 trees allegedly taken by Keplinger yielded 22 logs, “belonging to the United States, with a market value of $4,476.25,” according to the plea deal.

Keplinger then used his boat to take the logs to Kodiak, the plea deal states. The restitution required under the plea deal includes the cost of transporting the logs back to Sitka and the Forest Service.

“Timber theft by individuals is not common on the Tongass National Forest,” Robbins said.

Court documents do not state why Keplinger took the trees or how the theft was discovered. A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Alaska declined to talk about anything not covered by public court documents, as did Robbins with the Forest Service.

• James Brooks Cascade is a longtime Alaska reporter who lives in Juneau. He previously worked at the Anchorage Daily News, Juneau Empire, Kodiak Mirror and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. Alaska Beacon is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.