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Elm Mountain Ranch owner Fred Eshelman, the primary beneficiary of the Eshelman Institute for Innovation at the University of North Carolina\u2019s School of Pharmacy, is now suing the men for $9.4 million in federal court, claiming they stepped from one parcel of public land to another and across the airspace of his private property.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Just so we understand – this is a landowner who owns land adjacent to U.S. BLM property at a “four corners” spot. Think intersecting fences where the diagonals are both public land, or from the other direction both privately owned (by the same rich fella in this case.)<\/p>\n
Central Missouri residents Bradly Cape (Steeleville), Philip Yeomans (Cuba), John Slowensky (New Florence) and Zach Smith used a stepladder at a Wyoming four-corner crossing \u2014 one leg planted on each side of a public Bureau of Land Management parcel \u2014 to get over a fence and avoid the corner sections of private land owned by Eshelman.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Now, the hunters felt that\u00a0 if they stepped from BLM land to BLM land, they were clear, right?\u00a0 They were acquitted at the criminal trial for trespassing:<\/p>\n
\u201c(Eshelman) believed the whole mountain was his and that no one but (he)was allowed to be there \u2026 like a king,\u201d The hunters’ attorney, Ryan Semerad said during the closing arguments of last year’s criminal trial. \u201cWhen he hears there are some regular people on the other side of the mountain (he said) \u2018go track them down, arrest those men!'”<\/p>\n
But Eshelman said the hunters trespassed by being on his property’s airspace, ultimately diminishing the ranch’s property value.<\/p>\n
\u201cA body is bigger than that point,\u201d Carbon County prosecutor Mayfield Davis said during last year’s criminal trial. \u201cAll of their bodies were over private land … When you break that plane [above a property boundary line] you are entering their property.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Springfield New-Leader<\/a><\/p>\n
So by stepping over a coupla feet on either side of a fence post they DIMINISHED the value of the land by more than most people earn in their lives.\u00a0 Kinda makes an egalitarian like me think Eshelman (and his apparently bought-and-paid-for DA) should lose, and pay a nominal fine to boot. Say $9,000,000 or so?<\/p>\n
If Eshelman’s name rings a bell, you may remember his $2,500,000\u00a0 contribution to True the Vote, one of the big “stolen election” groups after the 2020 election – and then when they failed to produce credible results, tried to sue to get his money back. Obviously a Trump supporter who believes in the power of a lawsuit, eh?\u00a0\u00a0 CNN<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"