Published: June 24, 2009 11:36 pm      

Grand jury charges logger with timber thefts

HOLLIDAYSBURG — A statewide grand jury has found sufficient evidence to warrant further criminal action against a Blair County man accused of stealing thousands of dollars worth of timber from property owners in Cambria and Somerset counties.

Francis Irvin Ritchey, 38, of Claysburg, is charged with thefts from land in the Lilly area and Quemahoning Township, court documents state.

The landowners allege that Ritchey did not live up to agreements to split the proceeds he received by selling the timber to sawmills.

Ritchey is charged with six counts each of theft by unlawful taking and receiving stolen property, four counts each of theft by deception and failure to make deposition of funds and one count of criminal mischief.

Sandra Cook told the grand jury that Ritchey cut timber on her nearly

200-acre property in Somerset County in August and sold the trees for more than $4,500 but didn’t pay any of the money to her.

The presentment alleges that Ritchey took $15,130 worth of timber from Thomas Hollenbeck’s Somerset County property and failed to turn over any of the proceeds to him.

Lilly area residents Daniel Monahan, Jerry Bender and Rosemarie Noel are also listed as victims, along with Joseph and Donald Echard of Duncansville, Blair County.

Availability of other records was denied Wednesday after Blair County Judge Timothy Sullivan enforced a seal placed on the grand jury presentment by Northumberland County Senior Judge Barry F. Feudale, who presided over the jury.

Sullivan said Wednesday that in light of the grand jury investigation he granted a request by the state attorney general’s office to bypass a preliminary hearing and move the charges against Ritchey directly to common pleas court.

The case will next be considered at a status conference set for Aug. 17, and the charges then will move through the county court system, the judge said.

No trial date has been set.

Ritchey was sentenced in November to serve four to nine years in state prison and ordered to pay $500,000 in restitution following his conviction on nine counts of theft and related charges in September.

In that case, he illegally cut timber on land and in some instances failed to pay landowners who had contracted with him for their timber. The victims included PennDOT, the Altoona City Authority and landowners in southern Blair County.