Capitol Hill developer and Odd Fellows landlord Ted Schroth is serving time in Chelan County jail after pleading guilty to second-degree malicious mischief, confirmed PSBJ this week. The crime? Poisoning 123 trees on Whiskey Ranch, a neighboring property owned by KLN Construction.
Chelan County authorities launched the investigation into the incident in the fall of 2014, when a Whiskey Ranch caretaker found salt at the base of the trees. The nearby Chelan Wal-Mart provided detectives a surveillance video of a man who looked like Schroth buying $500 worth of salt in eighty-one bags. When detectives asked Schroth about the salt purchases, he claimed it was so he could “stockpile it for winter,” reported KOMO in 2015. Salt was also found all over Schroth’s Chelan property as well as packaging for a new head lamp and utility knife.
Schroth did the poisoning while working on The Lookout, a resort community on the north side of Lake Chelan. Apparently, the natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest on the Whiskey Ranch property was obstructing views for The Lookout, and Schroth decided to take matters into his own hands. The judge sentenced Schroth to 45 days in jail and ordered him to pay $156,413 restitution to the owner of the Lake Chelan property where the trees were poisoned.
Before committing senseless “arboristic homicide“, Schroth was best known for his work at the Odd Fellows building where he hiked up the rent on many of its tenants, effectively evicting a bunch of non-profits, small businesses, and arts organizations, including Velocity Dance Center, reported The Stranger in 2007.
