Five Years Jail for Cutting Down 500 Trees That Spoilt the View

Generations of American children have been taught that there is something noble about cutting down trees and admitting to it. After all, one of the most enduring tales about the first US president George Washington is that he chopped down his father's cherry tree with his little hatchet and won his admiration by owning up.

This week in Las Vegas, 61-year-old Douglas Hoffman found that the law was rather less impressed by his feat of cutting down 500 of his neighbors' trees which blocked his view of the mountains and casinos. He has now been jailed for five years.

Told of his sentence by judge Donald M Mosley, Hoffman, who has hip, heart, prostate and back problems, informed the court: "I am not a bad person. I am a good person."

Hoffman and his wife had bought a second home in a retirement area just south of Las Vegas, according to the Los Angeles Times, but soon found that recently planted Mesquite trees were growing to a height of eight feet (2.5 meters) and obscuring the view from the deck of their house. After failing to persuade the local residents' committee to swap the trees for shrubs, Hoffman went into action with a single-blade saw.

In November, a jury convicted him of 10 counts of malicious destruction of trees. Deputy district attorney Joshua Tomsheck told the court that, while Hoffman was awaiting trial, a rambling, typed letter had been sent to the governor's office warning that "if no changes come soon - and soon means now, immediately - the militia has many options". Options included burning homes and setting off explosive devices - Hoffman's thumbprint was found on the address label.