Two Davis County men who built an all-terrain-vehicle (ATV) access road across U.S. Forest Service land above Bountiful are now facing criminal charges.
Kenneth C. Patey of Bountiful and Nick Doyle of Syracuse are each charged with one misdemeanor count of illegally constructing a road in the Wasatch-Cache National Forest near Mueller Park Canyon, according to a complaint filed this week in U.S. District Court.
The complaint charges the men with bulldozing a road on forest land just east of Windsor Park Circle.
The construction, for which Patey and Doyle did not have a permit, occurred in November 2001, according to the complaint.
Doyle, who works for a machinery rental company, told Forest Service investigators that Patey, a landowner in Bountiful, hired him to "construct ATV and snowmobile trails for a recreational area he was building above Bountiful," the complaint states.
Assistant U.S. Attorney William Nixon characterized the damage to the land as "extensive."
Patey had told the Forest Service on at least two occasions in 2001 that he intended to construct a road across forest land.
Both times, the Forest Service informed him he needed a permit from the agency, states the complaint.
Patey and Doyle could not be reached for comment Thursday.
In a related case, Patey is the defendant in a civil lawsuit filed by the city of Bountiful that accuses him of bulldozing on slopes greater than 30 percent, in violation of a city ordinance, said City Manager Tom Hardy.
The city is demanding that Patey restore the disturbed land.
In response, Patey has filed a counterclaim against Bountiful, arguing the city's ordinance is an unconstitutional taking of private property
