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Judge denies request to overturn tree theft verdicts [1]

['Jared Strong', 'More From Author', '- January']

Date: 2024-01

In a terse ruling this week, a district court judge denied a repeated effort to negate guilty verdicts for a man accused of stealing trees from the state.

An attorney for Jason Levant Ferguson, 41, of Rolfe, argues that a jury erred in November when it convicted him of felony theft and 50 timber violations.

In separate requests for a new trial and for an arrest of judgment, attorney Kevin Fors of Harcourt has insisted in recent weeks that Ferguson is entitled to cut firewood and timber from public land to be used for heat and shelter.

Fors has used England’s Charter of the Forest — which established the rights of commoners to use public lands about 800 years ago — to justify Ferguson’s takings from the Stoddard Wildlife Management Area in northwest Iowa. Ferguson was accused of stealing more than 100 trees from the public area, including a bur oak that was about six feet wide at its base.

In December, District Court Judge Derek Johnson rejected the motion for a new trial because he said the English charter does not apply to forests of the United States.

On Wednesday, the judge rejected a recent request to not impose the jury’s unanimous guilty verdicts.

“For the reasons stated in the Court’s ruling of December 19, 2023, the Defendant’s motion in arrest of judgment is DENIED,” Johnson wrote.

Ferguson is set to be sentenced during a court hearing on Jan. 26. He faces up to five years in prison for the theft charge and one year for each of the 50 timber violations.

Ferguson had also faced numerous felony drug charges and decades in prison when searches of his rural property uncovered evidence of marijuana and methamphetamine production, but the judge decided the evidence was obtained with improperly approved search warrants. Those charges were dismissed.

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