FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 28, 2006
(Columbia, SC) A Pageland timber buyer is charged with illegally withholding payment in two timber transactions. Forestry Commission agents arrested Michael Franklin Plyler, 43, on two counts of breach of trust.
In one case, agents said Plyler had an agreement to harvest timber from a tract in Chester County. Under the terms of the agreement, Plyler was to cut the trees, sell them to a mill, and pay the landowner based on the mill receipts. Records show that Plyler diverted more than $18,000 that should have been paid to the landowner.
Agents also charged Plyler with withholding $2000 from a Fairfield County landowner in a similar transaction. In that case, investigators said Plyler failed to pay for 10 truckloads of cedar logs harvested from the landowner’s property.
Plyler was booked into the Fairfield County Detention Center and was later released on bond. If convicted on both charges, he could be facing up to 15 years in prison.
Timber theft and timber fraud cost South Carolina landowners millions of dollars each year. Timber transaction crimes should be reported to Forestry Commission law enforcement,
803-896-8820.
-END-
Legal Reference:
SC Code of Laws 16-13-230, Breach of Trust