BY DAN HILDEBRAN
A former Bradford County Commissioner was arrested for grand theft following accusations that he and his son stole timber.
Eddie Joseph Lewis last held office in 2016 when Frank Durrance beat him for the District 5 seat.
The 70-year-old was arrested on February 13 for grand theft, fraud, and dealing in stolen property. He and his son and co-defendant, Eddie Joseph “Josh” Lewis, III, were released after posting bond in Alachua County.
According to a sworn complaint, Josh Lewis’s company was hired as a subcontractor to harvest 238 acres of timber in northeast Alachua County. The Josh Lewis Timber Company Inc. was to take some of the wood to the West Fraser sawmill in Lake Butler and some to the company’s Maxville-Clay Hill operation. West Fraser purchased the 238 acres in November.
After someone telephoned a West Fraser manager and reported that he had seen five trailers of logs staged at Eddie Lewis’s Bradford County home, the company started an investigation. As part of the inquiry, an investigator for the company installed surveillance cameras throughout the 238-acre tract, recording every load of timber leaving the property.
Investigators also followed several trucks leaving the Alachua County tract and discovered that some timber was transported to Tatum Brothers Sawmill in Lawtey.
The private investigator noted several truckloads of timber leaving the property, which the defendants did not report to the company on a load reconciliation report.
An Alachua County Sheriff’s investigator wrote in the complaint that he subpoenaed the scale records of Tatum Brothers and found that the ex-commissioner delivered 21 loads of stolen timber to the Lawtey sawmill and was paid $41,020 for the logs.
According to the scale records, Lewis told Tatum employees that the timber came from a woman’s property.
“A recorded phone conversation with (the woman) revealed that the defendant and co-defendant are family members,” wrote the sheriff’s investigator, “(and they were) not harvesting any timber for her.”
The investigator wrote that the defendants indicated criminal intent by Eddie Lewis falsifying the scale records at Tatum Brothers and the fact that the father and son were authorized only to take the timber from the Alachua County tract to the two West Fraser mills.
“The defendant and co-defendant also waited to harvest the stolen logs until late in the evening or on the weekends when the foresters and the employees of the timber companies were not working,” wrote the sheriff’s investigator. “These loads of logs were transported to a staging area and then transported to Tatum Brothers Lumber Company Mill on the next business day. The defendant and co-defendant had to stage the stolen logs because they were harvested after the mills were closed.”
The complaint alleges that even though Eddie Lewis drove the stolen timber to Lawtey and received payment for the logs, his son was involved in the scheme because he was observed on the Alachua County tract every day, and his company was the recipient of the checks issued by Tatum Brothers.
“(Josh Lewis) knew or should have known that any income of payments either gained or forwarded from (the) Tatum Brothers Lumber Company mill would have been illegally harvested timber from (the Alachua County) tract and thus ill-gotten gains,” wrote the investigator. “(Josh Lewis’s) timber company was only harvesting timber from West Fraser at this time.”
A staff member at the office of the pair’s defense attorney, Bobi J. Frank, said the lawyer was in court and unavailable to discuss the case. The employee relayed a message from Frank for this story.
“Her comment is, we need to let the justice system play out,” the staff member said.
