SW Washington Logger Convicted of Benefit Theft
A southwest Washington logger must serve 60 days home detention and repay more than $163,000 after he admitted stealing workers’ comp benefits from the Washington State Department of Labor & Industries (L&I), which administers the state workers’ comp system, from January 2018 to January 2020. James Thomasson claimed injuries from working in the woods led to disabilities that affected his ability to work, and a medical provider said he was eligible for lost wages payments. However, after receiving a tip, L&I investigators caught Thomasson performing multiple activities that were inconsistent with his medical restrictions including walking briskly uphill, lifting heavy tools over his head and dancing. Upon reassessment, the provider noted he had “engaged in well-executed intentional underperformance” of his abilities, which led to the second-degree theft plea.
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Purdue Grant Focuses On Forest Development
U.S. Dept. of Agriculture has awarded a $10 million grant to Purdue University to help landowners and stakeholders better adapt their forests to increasingly complicated economic and climate conditions in the Eastern U.S. About 5 million small, private landowners control just over half the acreage of forests in the Eastern U.S. This contrasts with Western U.S. forests, which are mostly publicly owned. Purdue and its project partners—the University of Georgia, the University of Maine and the U.S. Forest Service—aim to improve the management of 15 million acres of those forests, an area nearly as large as…
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