Waite

MEMORANDUM *

BACKGROUND

In 1998 the United States Forest Ser *595 vice began investigating the defendant-appellant, Earl Waite, following reports that Waite was accumulating several large diameter, fire-killed Douglas fir logs on his property near Challis, Idaho. These reports led Forest Service agents to suspect that Waite was illegally logging the wood from an area called Rankin Creek ** , which was closed to fuelwood cutting. In the fall of 1998, the Forest Service executed a search warrant at the defendant’s property. Forty-eight cords of wood, consisting primarily of large diameter Douglas fir, were seized by Forest Service agents. Other wood found on Waite’s property was not seized.

Waite was indicted on May 5,1999. The superseding indictment charged Waite with one count under 18 U.S.C. § 1361 , for willfully injuring and committing depredation against property of the Department of Agriculture and thereby causing damage in excess of $1000; one count under 18 U.S.C. § 641 , for willfully and knowingly receiving, concealing and retaining property of the United States, valued in excess of $1000, with the intent to convert that property to his own use or gain; and two counts…