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HOLLIDAYSBURG - The owner of a Claysburg-area logging company was sent to prison for at least four years and ordered to make almost $500,000 in restitution to property owners who say he took their timber but never paid for it.
Blair County Judge Tim Sullivan also barred Francis I. Ritchey, 37, from the logging business forever.
Sullivan said he was convinced after hearing a week of testimony in September that Ritchey took advantage of elderly property owners, promising to pay them for the timber he took from their land but instead stealing it.
"The people in Blair County value their land. He has violated the rights of every victim," Sullivan said as he imposed a four- to nine-year prison sentence and ordered Ritchey to repay double the worth of the timber he stole.
Deputy Attorney General Glenn Parno of Harrisburg, who prosecuted the timber case in Blair County, said state law permitted the judge to impose double restitution, although Parno asked the judge to order Ritchey to repay $765,634.
Ritchey's attorney Steven P. Passarello argued that while the law allows the judge to order double payments, he said it barred repayment to two of the victims in the Ritchey case, PennDOT and the Altoona City Authority.
Ritchey was convicted of stealing $131,107 worth of timber from wooded land owned by PennDOT and $6,846 of timber from land owned by the authority.
Those two sums had to be subtracted from the restitution bill.
That meant Ritchey still owed $244,864 to seven private property owners. The judge ordered Ritchey to pay back $489,728 to the victims.
During his September trial, Ritchey said his father, Harold Ritchey of Claysburg, was responsible for taking some of the timber and the younger Ritchey maintained his innocence, stating, "I believe I have been an upstanding businessman the last two decades."
Sullivan said he didn't buy the defense's argument and said "blaming the father was a game these two concocted."
Marjorie Louise Mattas, the daughter of elderly victims Raymond and Marjorie Parks of Juniata Gap, said that while the timber case was about money, it also was "about responsibility, about consequences."
She said Ritchey would have made a lot of money and still paid the land owners for their timber had he done things right, but he made a bad decision because of his greed.
"He targets particularly elderly people," she said.
Mattas said she took her ailing, 87-year-old father onto the land Ritchey timbered not long before his death and when he saw the destruction Ritchey left behind, he cried.
She said it will take 50 years to replenish the land.
Sullivan also placed Ritchey on four years probation for not filing state income tax returns over a three-year period.
Passarello said he will appeal Ritchey's conviction based on improper instructions to the jury and the tough sentence imposed by Sullivan.
HOLLIDAYSBURG - The owner of a Claysburg-area logging company was sent to prison for at least four years and ordered to make almost $500,000 in restitution to property owners who say he took their timber but never paid for it.
Blair County Judge Tim Sullivan also barred Francis I. Ritchey, 37, from the logging business forever.
Sullivan said he was convinced after hearing a week of testimony in September that Ritchey took advantage of elderly property owners, promising to pay them for the timber he took from their land but instead stealing it.
"The people in Blair County value their land. He has violated the rights of every victim," Sullivan said as he imposed a four- to nine-year prison sentence and ordered Ritchey to repay double the worth of the timber he stole.
Deputy Attorney General Glenn Parno of Harrisburg, who prosecuted the timber case in Blair County, said state law permitted the judge to impose double restitution, although Parno asked the judge to order Ritchey to repay $765,634.
Ritchey's attorney Steven P. Passarello argued that while the law allows the judge to order double payments, he said it barred repayment to two of the victims in the Ritchey case, PennDOT and the Altoona City Authority.
Ritchey was convicted of stealing $131,107 worth of timber from wooded land owned by PennDOT and $6,846 of timber from land owned by the authority.
Those two sums had to be subtracted from the restitution bill.
That meant Ritchey still owed $244,864 to seven private property owners. The judge ordered Ritchey to pay back $489,728 to the victims.
During his September trial, Ritchey said his father, Harold Ritchey of Claysburg, was responsible for taking some of the timber and the younger Ritchey maintained his innocence, stating, "I believe I have been an upstanding businessman the last two decades."
Sullivan said he didn't buy the defense's argument and said "blaming the father was a game these two concocted."
Marjorie Louise Mattas, the daughter of elderly victims Raymond and Marjorie Parks of Juniata Gap, said that while the timber case was about money, it also was "about responsibility, about consequences."
She said Ritchey would have made a lot of money and still paid the land owners for their timber had he done things right, but he made a bad decision because of his greed.
"He targets particularly elderly people," she said.
Mattas said she took her ailing, 87-year-old father onto the land Ritchey timbered not long before his death and when he saw the destruction Ritchey left behind, he cried.
She said it will take 50 years to replenish the land.
Sullivan also placed Ritchey on four years probation for not filing state income tax returns over a three-year period.
Passarello said he will appeal Ritchey's conviction based on improper instructions to the jury and the tough sentence imposed by Sullivan.
