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At Oregon’s Cape Meares Lighthouse, two men who heavily damaged the Fresnel lens, and also caused significant damage to the lantern room and the lighthouse grounds, have received a creative sentence by a Tillamook County District Court judge in an agreement reached between the district attorney and the men’s defense attorney.
David Wilkes Jr. and Zachary Pyle were ordered to pay $100,000 to the lighthouse and serve three 16-day jail terms over three years. Each jail term will start on December 27, which coincides with the date of the vandalism. They served their first sentence from December 27, 2010 to January 11, 2011, and they will do so again at the end of the this year and the end of next year.
The men, who admitted they were drunk at the time, said it was the dumbest thing they had ever done. In handing down the sentence, the judge said, “Some people go to Hawaii for vacation and some people go to jail. The next three years will serve as a reminder, and you are going to get some time to contemplate that.”
Amazingly, the two men have already paid slightly over $30,000 each in restitution, the bulk of which reportedly will go to the Friends of Cape Meares Lighthouse.
This story appeared in the
Mar/Apr 2011 edition of Lighthouse Digest Magazine. The print edition contains more stories than our internet edition, and each story generally contains more photographs - often many more - in the print edition. For subscription information about the print edition, click here.
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