Posted on 07/06/2025 8:41:08 AM PDT by xxqqzz
A Nantucket homeowner secretly chopped down a group of his neighbor’s 50-year-old trees to carve out “sweeping views” of the Atlantic Ocean for a property he listed for nearly $10 million, a lawsuit alleged.
Patricia Belford claims her neighbor, Jonathan Jacoby, trespassed onto her property in February and leveled 16 towering cedar, cherry and Leyland cypress trees — gutting her property’s charm and value to enhance the views from the upper level of his home.
Months later, Jacoby put the four-bedroom, three-bath Massachusetts house at 3 Tautemo Way on the market for $9.975 million, touting the endless blue horizon, a selling point notably absent from the property’s previous listing, according to the Nantucket Superior Court lawsuit filed on June 23.
“The way I feel is that I am confident once all of the facts and evidence have been presented, that justice will be served,” Matt Erisman, Belford’s property manager, told the Nantucket Current.
The 30-foot trees, planted by the Belford family in the 1970s and carefully maintained since, stood just beyond the shared boundary with the alleged vandal’s property, creating a natural barrier along the roadway that provided shade, aesthetic appeal, privacy and noise reduction, the filing states.
Kirilov later told police that Jacoby personally hacked down the trees and hired him to haul away the wreckage — supposedly with the property owner’s permission, the suit alleges.
“I was just about to complete the cleanup when the caretaker Matt came to the property, and at that moment I realized he was not aware of the cleanup work I was doing,” the shaken gardener said in a March 11 statement to the Nantucket Police Department.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
The elites eating their own.
I’m siding with the tree owner on this one. The jerk had no business cutting down trees not owned by him for his own financial gain.
We live in the forest, and there has been the potential for others to knock some of our trees down with a dozer. Fortunately it was all talk. If by chance it did happen, I don’t know what would have been more expensive, suing the jerks or inflicting serious damage to the cat dozing the trees.
Wild guess - extremely entitled man got caught.
The court should order the bastard to replace the trees with old growth ones at his own expense.
Betting the 1.4 million will be more than covered in the 10 million for the house. If only the act had prison consequences instead of financial, there might be some retribution. Well, depending on whose friendship circle included a friendly local judge.
So… The owner of the trees is saying, the guy cut the trees down without her consent on her property.
The guy who cut down the trees is saying she gave him permission to do so.
Unless the guy who cut down the trees has a contract, I think that’s going to go hard for him. If he’s guilty of doing it, he is an abject a-hole in my estimation.
Of course… We don’t know anything about her. For all we know, she may be very elderly with failing memory, that kind of thing.
In any case, that guy should’ve protected himself by having a contract with her signature on it, even a simple statement. If he doesn’t have that, he’s gonna have a hard time proving it.
Hmmm the nerve of some people.
That this is even news boggles in the mind though.
You might be right, said the Belfords live off property, assisted living. The caretaker of the home caught the gardener, helping to clean up the trees & asked what he was doing. Sounds like this Jacoby guy got caught! & knew the homeowners weren’t there.
If true, what a POS!
CT’s Dem gov did something like that for his property, though he’s not moved to sell it.
I am rather surprised that Nantucket does not require tree removal permits for trees that have a certain canopy width.
If I am wrong and a permit is required discovering whether the owner said it was o.k.
hahaha
Gee I wonder which party they vote for.
FR comments is like a game of Telephone, with everyone having their own interpretation.
The story says the guy who cut down the trees was working for the neighbor, who claimed the owner gave permission.
Criminal trespass and destruction of property. Not good.
“secretly chopped down a group of his neighbor’s 50-year-old trees”
Secretly?......that’s a neat trick....when someone takes a tree down in my neighborhood everybody knows it.
Also, yankees are bad enough....the new england breed can be especially obnoxious jackasses.
“ I’m siding with the tree owner on this one.”
As if that’s even open to debate.
Where in the excerpt does it say that?!
Regards,
> The guy who cut down the trees is saying she gave him permission to do so. <
Why would the tree owner give that permission? What would she gain by it?
Either the tree cutter is simply lying here, or he manipulated the tree owner into saying something she did not mean to say.
As you noted, rlmorel, without a written contract the tree cutter is in trouble. And deservedly so. He should be sued bigly, and spend some time in jail for malicious destruction of property.
“claimed the owner gave permission”
A verbal contract?.....depends on state law I guess.
I had an ahole neighbor that did that to one of my trees. It was a huge maple tree and that bastard cut the whole thing down because leaves would fall over the fence. So rather than call me and have it trimmed over the fence line he waited until I was out of town and cut the whole thing down. I hated that jackass with a passion and move soon after to get away from that jerk.
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