Spokane Men Accused Of Illegal Logging Landowner Files Civil Suit Against Two With Long Criminal Histories; Charges May Follow

(From For the record, Wednesday, April 12, 1995): Spokane rancher A. Lamont Nibarger never has been convicted of a crime, according to family members. A headline on Page B1 of Friday’s edition about an alleged timber theft may have suggested to readers Nibarger had a criminal conviction.

It took Aaron Lowe’s ponderosa pines a century and a half to grow thick and tall - but only moments for a chain saw to bring seven of them crashing down.

Lowe has before-and-after photos to prove his trees have been stolen. And he blames a neighbor once accused of securities fraud and a logger still on probation for insurance fraud.

“I physically cried at the scene,” said Lowe, 40, a Spokane attorney who is suing the two men.

“I said, ‘Why would anyone do this to trees 150 years old and why would they do this to me?”’

The Spokane County prosecutor’s office is close to filing criminal charges, Lowe said he was told.

But that won’t replace those majestic pines.

The trees had sprouted on a steep and rocky southern slope on Lowe’s 156-acre spread atop Lookout Mountain, about 10 miles northwest of downtown Spokane.

The location is so rugged that a consulting forester predicts 2,600 seedlings would have to be planted in hopes that only seven would survive.

A bulldozer also was used to remove some of the stumps in what Lowe said is an obvious attempt to hide the theft. The heavy equipment cut down to bedrock, leaving the site susceptible to erosion.

The damage totals about $12,000. Federal statutes allow Lowe to triple the damages if he wins in court.

The neighbor, Alonzo “Lamont” Nibarger, hired a friend to log his ranch in the spring of 1994. But the logger, Lewis R. Kulczyk, strayed across Lowe’s property line even after the attorney had obtained a survey and a temporary restraining order, Lowe’s civil lawsuit claims.

“If they would do this to me after receiving a temporary restraining order, what would they do with me now?” said Lowe, who fears for his safety and that of his wife and three young sons.

Nibarger, 55, hung up on a reporter and refused to return a dozen telephone calls seeking comment on Lowe’s allegations.

Kulczyk, 52, also did not return several calls and could not be reached at his Spokane home this week.

Spokane attorney Thomas Luciani, who represents Nibarger, blamed the theft on Kulczyk and warned The Spokesman-Review about naming his client.

Nibarger and Kulczyk are no strangers to authorities.

In the mid-1970s, the Securities and Exchange Commission accused Nibarger and several business partners of fraud and of selling unregistered securities. They collected $18 million from investors in 25 states.

The group was not prosecuted in exchange for agreeing to stop selling securities in Stewart Energy Systems of Idaho Inc. The company marketed a solar-powered engine whose technology some officials doubted even existed.

The Washington Department of Natural Resources has cited Nibarger for logging without a permit. Riverside State Park officials said the rancher was involved in the illegal trucking of logs across public property in 1993.

Kulczyk is nearing the end of a five-year probation ordered after he was convicted on a dozen counts of mail fraud and witness tampering.

He served 10 months in 1993 at Geiger Correction Center for scheming to defraud insurance companies. Kulczyk buried a bulldozer near Athol, Idaho, and then reported it stolen.

In a two-year period in the early 1990s, Kulczyk was cited nine times for misdemeanors in violating the Idaho Forest Practices Act. His violations were mostly for building inadequate logging roads and driving heavy machinery through a creek.

In a letter to Kulczyk, Idaho officials referred to him as the worst logger in the state.

The Internal Revenue Service accused Kulczyk of tax evasion in the late 1960s. The court file on the case is archived in Seattle and was unavailable.

And in Kulczyk’s 1989 fraud sentencing, an associate testified Kulczyk had a long history of insurance fraud.

Robert C. Bowen, who said he worked for Kulczyk off and on for 14 years, testified Kulczyk had him vandalize bulldozers so Kulczyk could report it to his insurance carrier.

Bowen also said under oath that Kulczyk burned down a house in 1981 for the insurance money.

Kulczyk never was charged in those cases.

Although Kulczyk and Nibarger both live in Spokane, they register some of their personal vehicles in Idaho, where there are no vehicle excise taxes. They also have Idaho driver’s licenses.

Records from the Idaho Transportation Department indicate Nibarger lists two Coeur d’Alene addresses. One is fictitious and the other is a house owned by Tracie Olin. She is the daughter of Shirley Olin, who was Kulczyk’s longtime secretary before retiring last year.

Tracie Olin said she did not know Nibarger and that she had been living in the house for only a year. Her mother lived there before that.

Kulczyk’s Hayden Lake address listed on his driver’s license is his business location.

Registering vehicles in another state is a gross misdemeanor in Washington, the state Department of Revenue says. It’s punishable by up to a year in jail and a fine equal to three times the amount of delinquent taxes and fees.

Lowe said the histories of Nibarger and Kulczyk should have grabbed the authorities’ attention and pushed them to file timber theft charges sooner.

Lowe at the very least wants Kulczyk’s probation revoked by federal authorities.

County Prosecutor Jim Sweetser said the case is under investigation and that he couldn’t comment further.

Lowe bought property surrounded by Nibarger’s 2,400-acre ranch in December 1992.

The next year, Lowe successfully sued Nibarger for an easement and legal access to the property.

Last year, Lowe built a log home on the property, which has a panoramic view of Spokane and the surrounding area.

Lowe is not only suing for timber theft, but has filed a separate claim against Nibarger for refusing to take down three heavy gates.

Lowe’s wife, Denise, and their small children can’t operate the gates and are virtual prisoners on their property, Lowe said.

His lawsuits, which go to court this summer, claim emotional distress, harassment and negligence.

“No monetary damage could ever fully compensate the Lowes for the unwanted damage caused by the illegal logging,” the theft lawsuit states.

Nibarger has filed a counter claim alleging that Lowe gave him a generic survey instead of a more detailed one. That kept Nibarger from putting up a fence and drastically reduced the size of his pasture, his claim states.