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The leader of an illegal logging crew was sentenced to 20 years in prison after federal prosecutors used tree DNA to convince the jury he was guilty. Justin Andrew Wilke was convicted of conspiracy, theft of public property, depredation of public property, trafficking in unlawfully harvested timber, and attempting to traffic in unlawfully harvested timber for illegally cutting down trees in Olympic National Forest in Washington state.
Prosecutors accused Wilke and his crew of cutting down the trees and then selling them a mill using forged permits. To prove that Wilke sold the trees from Olympic National Forest, a research geneticist for the U.S. Agriculture Department's Forest Service provided genetic evidence showing that the DNA of the poached maple trees was nearly an exact match to the lumber he sold to the mill.
The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Washington noted that the "probability of the match being coincidental was approximately one in one undecillion (one followed by 36 zeroes)."
Wilke and his crew were also accused of starting a fire while trying to eradicate a hornet's nest. The fire grew out of control and burned over 3,300 acres, causing $4.2 million in damages. While members of Wilke's crew testified that "Wilke was standing next to the nest when it was lit on fire," they told the jury it was dark, and they were unable to see exactly how the fire was started. The jury did not convict Wilke on the two charges relating to the fire.