WISCASSET -- A Skowhegan man convicted of defrauding a dozen woodlot owners of $279,000 in timber value and getting more money than he deserved from a paper mill will spend the next five years behind bars.

Gerald L. Nelson Jr., 41, was sentenced Thursday by Justice Andrew Horton in Lincoln County Superior Court and was taken into custody immediately. He had been free on bail pending sentencing after a jury in Kennebec County in June convicted him of two counts of theft by deception.

Nelson also was given a three-year suspended sentence and placed on probation for two years. A condition of probation bars him from working in the woods.

Horton ordered a separate hearing to determine the amount of restitution, since the defense and the prosecution disagree on the amount that should be reimbursed.

The prosecutor, Assistant Attorney General Leeanne Robbin, sought $279,000 restitution. The jury found that Nelson stole an amount in excess of $10,000 but did not indicate a precise amount.

Robbin said the victims of the timber thefts that occurred between July 2000 and January 2003 were landowners in Augusta, Fairfield, Newport, Freedom, Peru, Carmel, Sumner and Canton.

None of the victims appeared at Nelson's sentencing hearing.

"They wrote letters to the court saying they'd like their money and they were not too happy with his conduct," Robbin said.

Nelson's attorney, Leonard Sharon, told the judge that Nelson's punishment "should be tempered by the fact no one else was ever prosecuted."

Sharon said during the trial that truckers falsified records and that Nelson's ex-wife, Mary Ellen Nelson, researched land records, handled all the money from the business and wrote all the checks.

Sharon said Nelson intends to appeal the verdict.

Nelson was accused of telling landowners he would cut trees damaged in the Ice Storm of '98 before they lost all value. In letters to landowners, he told them he would do selective cutting, clean up afterwards, then pay the landowner for the timber.

Robbin said he failed to do any of that.

Nelson also was convicted of falsifying trip tickets -- travel manifests meant to track mileage and ownership of cut timber -- to get a premium for hauling timber from a farther distance. That offense occurred between November 2000 and March 2001, when the Sappi Fine Paper Mill in Skowhegan paid several dollars extra per ton for timber hauled from locations more than 50 miles from the mill.

Robbin said Nelson told the truck drivers to put false landowners' names and locations on the trip tickets.

Nelson was convicted of timber theft charges in an unrelated case in 1997, but that verdict was overturned by the Maine Supreme Judicial Court.

Then, in a civil case in July 2001, he was ordered to pay more than $250,000 in fines and restitution after a judge found he violated the Unfair Trade Practices Act and the Consumer Solicitation Sales Act. Some of those fines were paid, according to the Attorney General's Office.

Betty Adams -- 621-5631

badams@centralmaine.com