A security executive who hacked into a New Jersey borough by cutting down his neighbor’s tree without permission last year must pay $13,000, a judge has ruled.
But Grant Haber still hasn’t found the root of the problem. Local prosecutors say damages could exceed $1 million, as they will have to pay to replace and care for the downed trees.
Mr. Haber struck a plea deal and was fined just 18 of the 32 trees he paid a contractor to cut down in a wealthy Kinnelon, New Jersey neighborhood last March. Without an agreement, he would face a $32,000 fine and trespassing charges.
Haber declined to comment during the hearing. According to the Daily Recordthe forest is said to have been cleared to provide better views of the New York City skyline from the five-bed, six-bathroom 5,000-square-foot colonial mansion.
After the controversy, Harbor walked away like a tree and left town. According to his real estate records, he sold his Kinnelon home last November for less than $1.8 million, which was $500,000 more than he paid for it in 2014.
A dispossessed neighbor says he will “never be 100% satisfied” even though he returned home a year later to a chorus of chainsaws tearing through his seven-acre property. He told The Record.
“I always use the analogy that if you hire someone to attack someone, that person is just as responsible as the person who did it,” Sami Shinwei said after the hearing. .
In June last year, a friend of mine who is an arborist in Kinnelon Ward started an incident about this tree that went viral. I posted a thread on X detailing the incident.
“A friend of mine who is a city arborist called me and told me about a man who cut down 32 large mature trees on his neighbor’s property in New Jersey to improve the view of New York City.” user @SamAsIAm I have written.
“He hired one man, and that man hired another man to cut them down and leave the remains there,” he continued. “Whoever this bastard is, I hope he can’t pay and they seize and sell his property. Maybe its worth is worth paying a $32,000 fine to cover costs. He probably thought that it would increase as much as possible.”
The thread went viral, garnering more than 4.2 million views since it was published.
Haber’s next step is for a Morris County town judge to decide how much restitution he should pay at a hearing scheduled for April 19.
On Monday, the anti-terrorist company’s CEO Haber said in court that he would pay the fine within 30 days.
