It was shortly after 4 a.m., still 2 ½ hours before dawn on Monday, Oct. 24, 2011, and Roland Raymond was behind the wheel of his new Chevy Tahoe. In front of him, dual cones of light spread across the black asphalt rushing beneath and brushed the thick forests whizzing past. Raymond, who had recently been fired from the Yurok Tribe after 17 years as its forestry program director, was zooming northbound through the hills of Southern Humboldt, hugging the curvy contours of Hwy. 101 as it crisscrossed the Eel River. He was 11 miles north of Garberville when the California Highway Patrol pulled him over.
In the mug shot taken later that morning, Raymond, who was a few weeks shy of his 49th birthday, looks like a zombie. Bony cheekbones protrude from his wan face, his mouth hangs slightly open, and his eyes stare blankly into the middle distance. According to the CHP he’d been driving — speeding, actually — while under the influence of a controlled substance. In his Tahoe the arresting officer allegedly found an undisclosed amount of a controlled substance, drug paraphernalia and more than an ounce of marijuana.
These are serious allegations, for which Raymond has yet to be charged. (The Humboldt County District Attorney’s Office is still reviewing the case.) But he had bigger problems on his plate. Much bigger. Raymond had been fired three weeks earlier for failing to report for work after three months of family medical leave. Shortly after, Yurok Tribe Executive Director Troy Fletcher contacted the Del Norte County District Attorney’s Office to report some serious suspicions about Raymond. A tribal employee named Forrest Gregg had discovered that seven Apple iPads purchased by Raymond were missing, and a closer look revealed much larger irregularities.
On the night he was pulled over and arrested, Raymond was under investigation by the Del Norte County District Attorney’s Office for allegedly masterminding a massive fraud scheme, using the Yurok Tribe and a few local confederates to embezzle nearly $1 million, the vast majority of it coming from the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs.
In a Valentine’s Day letter to fellow Yurok tribal members, Tribe Chairman Thomas O’Rourke expressed “great disappointment and outrage” over the alleged embezzlement and laid out a number of new safeguards that the tribe will implement to prevent such a crime from happening again. But details about the alleged theft were scant. No other suspects were named. Nine days later, a $1 million arrest warrant was issued for Raymond, but when officers showed up at his house in Myrtletown, just outside Eureka city limits, he had disappeared. Raymond remained a fugitive for six weeks. Last Thursday, he turned himself in. He has pleaded “not guilty.”
But Raymond is not the only person facing charges. When news of the embezzlement case broke publicly in late February, it hit with a one-two punch. The crime itself was plenty shocking, but even more confounding were the identities of Raymond’s alleged confederates. Ron LeValley and Sean McAllister, two respected local biologists with shining credentials and long histories of working with private and public clients, were identified as fellow suspects. They stand accused of using fake invoices to collect money for spotted owl research that was never conducted. Warrants for their arrest were issued in the amount of $1 million apiece (the same as Raymond’s) and they’ve been charged with felony embezzlement of public funds, grand theft and conspiracy (same as Raymond).
To people who know and have worked with LeValley, 65, and McAllister, 45, over the past 20-plus years the allegations seemed incongruous to the point of lunacy. “Even though I don’t know what’s going on, I know Ron,” said Crescent City biologist Craig Strong, who was just a kid when he first met LeValley. “And there is no way in hell that he would intentionally do anything criminal. He’s an honest man, and he’s a really good biologist, too.”
It’s not just personal friends who feel this way. A March 2 comment on the Humboldt Herald blog articulated a common reaction: “The accusations levied against LeValley and McAllister are so wildly inconsistent with their reputations that I was left with some serious cognitive dissonance.”
While Raymond evaded law enforcement on the morning of Feb. 23, McAllister was arrested without incident at the Old Town Eureka offices of Mad River Biologists, a professional consulting firm where he works as an associate biologist. LeValley, who founded Mad River Biologists 30 years ago, turned himself in that evening. Both men have since been released on dramatically reduced bail ($150,000 for LeValley, $50,000 for McAllister).
Late last month the embezzlement investigation was taken over by the FBI and the U.S. Department of the Interior. The case likely will be prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The next court date is scheduled for May 1.
The community, meanwhile, doesn’t know quite what to make of the charges. Much of LeValley and McAllister’s consulting work has been on controversial projects, including California’s Marine Life Protection Act Initiative, for which LeValley served as co-chair of the North Coast Study Region’s science advisory team, and conservation-oriented surveys on threatened and endangered species such as the northern spotted owl, the western snowy plover and the marbled murrelet. Critics of those efforts have seized on the biologists’ arrests in an attempt to discredit their work. Others simply wonder how LeValley and McAllister got mixed up in this mess.
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Evidence against all three suspects is laid out in an affidavit written by A.C. Field, chief investigator for the Del Norte County District Attorney’s Office. The main character in this storyline is definitely Roland Raymond. Circumstantial evidence against him dates back several years. For example, in the last three years of his employment Raymond allegedly used a tribal credit card to buy gasoline — an average of $1,000 worth per month — for a Ford F-250 truck that belongs to the tribe. Investigators later learned that the truck has been inoperable and parked in a secured lot at Yurok tribal headquarters since September 2010. Also suspicious: Raymond and his wife allegedly deposited more than $30,000 in cash into their joint U.S. Bank account in 2009 alone.
That’s the same year, according to the affidavit, that fake invoices with “Mad River Biology” headers started showing up at Yurok tribal offices. In just over a year — from October 2009 through November 2010 — 50 suspect invoices totaling nearly $600,000 were submitted to the tribe, along with just eight invoices (totaling $24,962) that have been deemed legitimate. Before it ended, this scam is alleged to have produced 75 invoices totaling $870,065, which the tribe paid in full using federal funding.
This was the central con, the real moneymaker in this alleged grift, and according to Yurok tribal leaders it was successful for so long only because Raymond occupied a position of uncommon trust and autonomy in the tribal structure. The affidavit says all but three of the suspected fake invoices were delivered to the tribe’s fiscal department by Raymond himself, along with a written request to cut the check immediately (or as soon as possible) so he could hand-deliver the payments.
Field, the chief investigator for Del Norte County’s D.A. office, initially believed Raymond was acting alone. “When I first started working on this thing I thought, ‘There’s no way these biologists are involved in this.’ Why would they risk their careers, their company, all this stuff?” Later, after collecting more evidence, he changed his mind. Before we get to the reasons why, it’s worth looking at the full trajectory of Raymond’s alleged crimes.
In the fall of 2010, around the time the alleged Mad River Biologists swindle was winding down, Raymond embarked on a mad spending spree using other people’s money, court documents claim. He had authority to issue purchase orders on the tribe’s behalf, and he also had two tribal credit cards issued in his name — one for travel expenses and another for purchases. In August 2010, the affidavit claims, he started exploiting these resources for his own benefit, spending $218 on a deluxe shower door from Pierson’s; $267 at Kragen Auto Parts; $335 on new brakes for his wife’s sedan; $315 on a fuel pump and filter; and $1,886 on heavy-duty tractor tires that someone later tried (and failed) to exchange for cash.
Field obtained search warrants for Raymond’s bank accounts, which revealed that in a one-month timespan, from mid-September to mid-October 2010, 11 checks totaling more than $35,000 were cashed or deposited into a joint checking account belonging to Raymond and his wife. These handwritten checks, ostensibly for travel reimbursement, were issued by the California Indian Forest and Fire Management Council, a Sacramento-based nonprofit where Raymond once volunteered. Field believes Raymond made the checks out to himself and forged the signature of a council official.
There’s more: Last September, Raymond allegedly submitted an after-the-fact purchase request, asking to be reimbursed for “mac data entry systems” for use “by crew in the field.” These “data entry systems” turned out to be the seven Apple iPads. With accessories, the bill for these devices came to $4,671.73. The iPads remain missing.
Biologists LeValley and McAllister aren’t the only people suspected of helping Raymond. Last year, Wonder Brothers Auto Body in Eureka submitted two invoices to the Yurok tribe — one for $1,457 and another for $3,750 — for work that was never done, at least not on the vehicles claimed, the affidavit states. Field suspects Wonder Brothers may have been complicit in more fraud, and a search warrant was served at the business in February. Reached by the Journal, a co-owner of the business declined to comment.
Even when Raymond was on his three-month family medical leave — during which he was expected to refrain from official tribe business — he allegedly used a tribal credit card to buy more than $2,100 worth of gasoline.
Raymond and his wife live in a modest, one-story home on Hillcrest Ave., a quiet street in Myrtletown that runs all of one block, sandwiched between Trinity and Glenwood streets. Court documents do a good job of describing the house’s color scheme: “crème and taupe … with plum-colored trim.” Potted plants and flat-topped hedges line the cement walkway leading to a lattice-topped side gate. On a recent sunny weekday afternoon, the property was quiet and tidy. A next-door neighbor described Raymond as “a nice guy” who always mowed both his own and his neighbor’s front yards, just to be nice. Reached by phone a week before Raymond’s arrest, his wife claimed she hadn’t heard from him and didn’t know where he was. Then she hung up.
When Del Norte County District Attorney Jon Alexander and his investigators searched the house on Feb. 23, the D.A. recently told the Journal, they found evidence that might explain his appearance in the mug shot taken that early October morning. “There were numerous syringes found throughout the house as well as a suspected amount of heroin, which has been sent to the U.S. Dept. of Justice for analysis.”
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No such track record can be traced for the two biologists alleged to have helped Raymond. Ron LeValley’s fascination with marine birds and mammals dates back more than 40 years, and he has built a reputation on his ability to identify coastal seabirds and track their distribution. According to a profile in the Conservation Yellow Pages, an online resource guide, “Virtually all of the marbled murrelet surveyors in California and southern Oregon have gone through [LeValley’s] training program.”
A 1969 graduate of Sacramento State College, LeValley earned his master’s in biology from Humboldt State University in 1980 and went on to found an ecotourism company called Biological Journeys, which he ran for 15 years. Now semi-retired and living in Mendocino County, LeValley spends much of his time photographing wildlife. He claims to have shot more than 90,000 wildlife images, and he frequently displays them at a gallery in Fort Bragg rented by the Mendocino Coast Photographer Guild, which he helped found. On his photography website you can sign up to receive a free LeValley photo in your email inbox daily.
This speaks to another aspect of LeValley’s reputation: generosity. His own website claims, “One of Ron’s outstanding attributes is sharing his knowledge and enthusiasm with others.” Craig Strong, LeValley’s friend and fellow member on the MLPA science advisory team, seconded that assessment. “One of his philosophies was to share his information openly, which is very unusual in science,” Strong said. When Strong was just a kid growing up in Deep Springs Valley, east of the Sierra Nevada, LeValley, then a college student in his early 20s, taught Strong’s mother how to band birds’ legs, an identification technique that enables studies of bird migration, social structures, lifespan and more. “He was like a mentor to me,” Strong said.
Strong believes that Roland Raymond likely took advantage of LeValley’s generosity and trusting nature, convincing him to launder money by pretending it would be reallocated back to the Yurok Tribe. “I think he was just being extremely naïve in agreeing to do this,” Strong said. “He thought he was doing the Yurok Tribe a favor when actually he was feeding the funds back into Roland Raymond’s personal [accounts].”
Though 20 years younger than LeValley, McAllister enjoyed similar respect, both personally and professionally. After spending his childhood in Mendocino County, McAllister came to Humboldt for college. He’s been a wildlife consultant for the past 20 years and joined Mad River Biologists in 1995. He specializes in studying threatened and endangered bird species and frequently supervises field crews and manages large projects.
Dr. Mark Colwell, a wildlife professor at HSU, has had a 12-year professional relationship with LeValley and McAllister. In 2000, LeValley approached Colwell and asked to collaborate on a long-term project to monitor the local snowy plover population. “I’ve enjoyed working with them over the years,” said Colwell, who described the biologists as “warm, sort of calm — just guys that I respect, certainly. A lot.”
While widespread, that respect is not universal. Established critics of the MLPA process and some of the biologists’ conservation efforts are now arguing that their scientific work is suspect. “The arrest will undoubtably [sic] bring up more questions as to the integrity of the science, financial practices, and public policy procedures” of the Marine Life Protection Act, Mendocino video journalist David Gurney argued on his blog. (Gurney’s battles with the MLPA date back years; he tried to sue the initiative as an entity unto itself in 2010, but the courts quashed the effort.)
The Department of Fish and Game is accepting comments on the initiative’s draft environmental impact report until April 16. Gurney seized the opportunity to ask, “How are we to trust any of the science that justifies these closures, when the co-chair of the science team has recently been arrested on felony fraud charges?”
Colwell has heard similar arguments about the snowy plover project. Efforts to protect the plover’s habitat have sparked criticism from fishermen, gravel miners, advocates for human and equine beach access and others who say Pacific Coast snowy plovers are genetically identical to thriving inland populations (“The Plight of the Plover,” June 17, 2004).
But Colwell argued that the charges against LeValley and McAllister have no relevance to their scientific work. “To call into question the plover project is sort of silly,” he said. “It suggests a real ignorance of how science is done.” For one thing, he explained, there’s a division of labor on the project, with LeValley and McAllister setting up predator exclosures around plover nests and doing leg-banding on chicks and adults. Colwell and his students conduct the analytical work independently, and Colwell personally manages the data sets. Besides, he said, LeValley and McAllister’s work has been beyond reproach. “They’ve been critical to the success of this project, and until something changes, I don’t see altering that [relationship].”
As for LeValley’s involvement with the Marine Life Protection Act, Jordan Traverso, deputy director of communications for the California Department of Fish and Game, said the agency is standing by the work of the North Coast region’s science advisory team.
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The biologists’ reputations can carry only so much weight in a court of law, and after examining bank records that he obtained via search warrants, district attorney’s investigator A.C. Field concluded that LeValley and McAllister were active participants in Roland Raymond’s embezzlement scheme. “I take investigative steps to try to prove people innocent,” Field said. “If I can’t prove ‘em innocent then the evidence builds up to guilt.”
The evidence here revolves around tax records and two North Valley Bank accounts — one in the name of Mad River Biologists and the other in the name of Ron LeValley. In analyzing bank records, Field recognized three major patterns of dispersing money from the Yurok Tribe. In the first technique he describes, a Yurok tribal check would be deposited into the Mad River Biologists account “less cash.” According to North Valley Bank records, Sean McAllister is an authorized signer for this type of transaction, which allegedly happened 31 times. The total amount of cash withheld from Yurok checks came to $244,625, court documents state.
The second technique allegedly worked as follows: The entire amount of a Yurok Tribal check would be deposited into the Mad River Biologists account, and within a few days (or sometimes on the same day) a check would be written from that account to either “Cash” (20 times), “North Valley Bank” (three times), “MRB Research” (once) or “Sean McAllister” (twice). This technique yielded $234,581, or more than $9,000 per transaction, according to Field’s affidavit.
The third technique worked like the second, Field says, except rather than writing checks from the Mad River Biologists account, money would be electronically transferred into Ron LeValley’s personal account. “On the same date of the electronic transfer, a personal check from LeValley’s account would be written out to ‘Roland Raymond,'” Field’s affidavit says. This allegedly occurred 18 times for a total of $123,352.
Much or all of the cash generated by these means may well have been funneled back to Raymond. But once the money got converted to hard currency, there’s no way to track it. Field said he wanted to check the security camera footage from the banks, but by the time he requested it the tapes had been erased.
At the end of each of the three years that this alleged scam was being run — 2008 through 2010 — the Yurok Tribe sent an IRS 1099 form to Mad River Biologists. “The amounts on these forms represent the total amounts of suspected true and false invoices together,” Field writes in his affidavit. And no one balked. The obvious question is: Why would a company pay taxes on hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of work that it hadn’t actually done — and hadn’t been paid for?
Field had already figured out that the Mad River Biologists invoices submitted for spotted owl research were fakes, likely created on a personal computer. The formats, headers and invoice numbers didn’t match legitimate invoices. Plus an associate at Mad River Biologists acknowledged that they hadn’t conducted the surveys in question. But the bank and tax records were a revelation. “This is one of those things you define as the ‘a ha moment,'” he said. In his eyes, this paper trail proves the relationship and criminal intentions of all three men — Raymond, LeValley and McAllister.
When the latter two men appeared in court for their arraignment, LeValley’s attorney, Bill Bragg, said his client believed he was helping the Yurok Tribe by reallocating funds, The Del Norte Triplicate reported. That’s exactly what LeValley’s friend and fellow biologist Craig Strong believes was the case. He said there’s no way LeValley would have taken tribal money for his own gain. “He’s secure, semi-retired, just doing what he likes to do — biology, birdwatching and photography. He lives in a beautiful house, he’s secure financially, and he’s not a greedy person.”
Contacted by the Journal, Sean McAllister expressed interest in being interviewed for this story, but his attorney, Greg Rael, advised him against it. LeValley’s attorney also declined an interview request on his client’s behalf. Many of the two men’s colleagues and clients did not respond to requests for comments.
While he’s convinced of his longtime friend’s fundamental innocence, Strong said he worries about how things will play out in court. “The sad thing is that there may be some substance to [the charges] because he was trusting and didn’t realize what he was getting into,” Strong said.
From the perspective of law enforcement, good intentions may well prove irrelevant. “Roland Raymond — we believe he’s the primary suspect in the case,” Field said. “But if you assist in the conspiracy you’re just as guilty.”
This article appears in The Yurok Grift.
why after three months of sick time then not showing up to work, they got suspicious? what is going on there? and more importantly whose babysitting who? what a mess, and a disgusting display of greed. people are struggling to feed their families and these guys are totally irresponsible with funds.
You have to read mighty far in this article to come across any incriminating evidence against the white scientists, when Raymond is demonized in the first paragraph. The crime is the same for all, and clearly (if you get to the last page) the scientists knew what they were doing. And the title seems to imply that it is a crime of Yurok, the people, rather than of one employee of the tribe.
Yeah, JoshN, we did consider that possible interpretation of the title. That’s not what it’s meant to say. The Yurok Tribe was the vehicle through which the grift allegedly occurred, just like a Lufthansa jet was the vehicle through which the famous 1978 “Lufthansa heist” was perpetrated.
It is difficult to fathom, how two highly educated white men could be lead astray by such an evil savage. The article’s title, as Burns admits, is open to interpretation; leaving one to wonder why you all would allow such a divisive double entendre to stand. Honestly, Burns, I believed you were a more balanced writer that this…
Yes Mr. Burns the title is ambiguous – like Sherman Alexie’s Title “Indian Killer.” Quite a useful rhetorical device.
Grift is an informal term for engaging in petty swindling. I would not call these sums of money petty.
What the alleged perpetrators are accused of doing would be akin to Ken Salazar, secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior, conspiring with others to steal money in a similar way. I do not think you would see an article about this titled, “American Grift”. A more appropriate title may have been “Head of Yurok Forestry Program Allegedly Embezzles Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars”. Although perhaps this is not catchy enough for the NCJ.
The insularity of the North Coast is partly to blame for this. Many of us outsiders, having worked with LeValley in the past and having intimate familiarity with how this type of work is completed and invoiced, are not so quick to assume that his role in the grift of the Yurok Tribe can be explained away by invoking his naïvety. My experience with LeValley is that he is a shrewd businessman — I decided about a decade ago that he was a little too shrewd for my tastes, and stopped doing business with him.
As for McAllister, his credentials are not unimpeachable, contrary to what the locals insist on repeating ad nauseum. McAllister does not have a degree in biology and would never have progressed past the title of “biological technician” at my firm (he would have faced an uphill battle getting hired in the first place). Yes, he’s an excellent birder. If the community of predominantly HSU-graduate biologists on the North Coast feel that this skill substitutes for a formal education, I don’t know what that says about value they place on their own HSU degrees in biology. As for me, I take it as an insult that I spent many years and many tens of thousands of dollars earning my undergraduate and graduate degrees, and I have less professional status than Sean on the North Coast, as I’ve been reminded many times.
Of course, McAllister’s honorary professional title at MRB says less about LeValley than it says about a “profession” that refuses to establish and enforce academic standards among its own ranks. In California, it’s easier to call yourself a consulting biologist than it is to call yourself a haircutter.
These guys may soon be known as, The Bird-men of Pelican Bay.
The headline is definitely wrong. It should read, Green Graft.
It is encouraging to see the high priests of the new religion being exposed for the frauds that they are. These green scams, perpetrated by individuals, groups, NGOs, institutions, law firms, non-profits, and governments, are slowly being outed around the world. They steal and launder public and private money, seize property, shut down industry, destroy jobs, and make lawyers rich. All in the name of planet worship and hysteria-based junk science.
Like all religions, they have many well-intentioned believers, but the profiteers always succumb to greed: greed for money, greed for power, greed for public and professional esteem. I guess you could say that what we have here is a case of Green Greed. Allegedly.
Buzz:
I don’t know about wildlife biology, but on the fisheries side the American Fisheries Society has several levels of certification with the highest being a “certified fisheries professional”. It requires documentation of education, experience and peer-reviewed publications. It also requires staying current in the field with continuing education and such. Regardless, this article shows that greed is part of human nature and no profession is exempt.
One question for Ryan – were data and reports falsely created for all the survey work invoiced, but never conducted? Seems very lax on the Tribal side that they shelled out a lot of money and never required some work products to support the invoices. Or were they given bogus reports? If so, that really throws into question the integrity of all data generated by Mad River Biology.
RT, The Wildlife Society has a “Certified Wildlife Biologist” program that has similar requirements. Unfortunately, people like me have been 100% unsuccessful at lobbying to have the designation provide any meaningful status beyond getting to put “CRB” after your name.
As for your question to Ryan, the story describes agency folks who obviously don’t want to have to do MRB’s work over from scratch. My opinion is this: When an academic biologist is caught faking work, his reputation is trashed, his career is over, and the credibility all the work he’d ever done is damaged beyond redemption. Why should it be different for consulting environmental scientists? And how can stakeholders have any faith in the work of someone being prosecuted for fraud? This seems rather obvious to me.
Among the questions that I think can reasonably be asked is this: if you are the head of a consulting firm and are involved in a scam, why do you do up badly countereited versions of your invoices.
None of this makes sense. Maybe subconscious racism was involved in the reporters’ varying treatment of the tribe and the biologists, but maybe the cases are different enough that a fair observer just treats them differently.
The closing quote makes sense to me — if you have a good business, a nice house, and a reputation as not being all that concerned with money, why would you try to steal from a group that is giving you a lot of business? That’s different from someone with a documented drug habit.
Mitch at 8:51 asks
“why would you try to steal from a group that is giving you a lot of business?”
Levalley”s lawyer said in court that his client thought he was helping the tribe (i.e. he somehow thought that laundering federal funds for a cause he believed in was a good thing to do).
Mad River Biologists was not stealing from a group who could give them a lot of business. They were assisting a contracting officer (who could give them a lot of business) in a scam.
Will be interesting to see if either Levalley or his lawyer provide information on how the funds Levalley was laundering helped the Yurok and why he thought helping out through illegal means was somehow a good thing.
Hmmmm, so the biologist & the bird watcher are painted as accomplished, respected citizens with a historical account of their accomplishments. The Indian is painted as a drug taking maniac who went on a “mad spending spree” buying things like a shower door and car parts. Sounds like the Kangaroo Court’s in days of old pioneer Arcata…you know, the days when someone who had one drop over half-blood Indian was denied the right to vote because they were less than human. How about running a story next week about Roland Raymonds history, his family and his accomplishments to let the public see him as more of a human being? Also….of the $870,000 stole, Roland Raymond was written checks for $123,000? That is only 14% of the total theft? And, the biologist and bird watcher took 86% of the money but their bail was reduced to practically zero? There is something wrong with the picture you have painted here…please try to keep some balance in your story and do not just scrape the surface…look deeper into who was responsible for writing these checks at the tribal office level and who in the Bureau of Indian Affairs should have monitored and conducted periodic site visits to approve of continuing advance of funding for the tribal contracts. Don’t just take the investigators work and use that if you want the real story, do a little work yourself.
“It’s not just personal friends who feel this way. A March 2 comment on the Humboldt Herald blog articulated a common reaction: “The accusations levied against LeValley and McAllister are so wildly inconsistent with their reputations that I was left with some serious cognitive dissonance.””
Am I the only one reading this concerned by the Journal’s continued use of an anonymous blog as a source?
Not only an anonymous blog, but an anonymous comment on the blog. This reeks of shoddy journalism; I mean the writer of the article could post to the Herald and then quote it to support the point being made.
It’s almost as bad as Bob Doran using his wife in an article to support the editorial bent he was taking.
Just a few comments from biologist. I’m not saying they’re innocent, but the comments here are shooting off in all kinds of random directions.
Anonymous blog comments: that comment summarizes the impressions of the local biologist community, the times standard had some similar quotes with names. Its a statement about reputations, who would you site for that anyway? If you don’t believe the source, ignore the statement, that’s how I read the paper.
Certification: While certification of biologists may be a good idea, this is unrelated to this case. Certified and licensed professionals are still capable of lying. Ron and Sean are likely to loose all future work depending on the outcome of this trial, just like any professional after losing a license. Certification/licensing would not have stopped embezzlement.
The surveys didn’t appear to be reported. It looks like it was just a billing mechanism.
Sean’s degree, whatever, he can do surveys, train people to do surveys and write reports. There’s other people out there doing surveys without degrees, this isn’t rocket science. Most wildlife biology work doesn’t involve statistics, if it does you’re probably still in academia.
Other MRB work: Most of what is being called into question is the biological assessment/NEPA type work. These reports get reviewed by so many people, it’s not like it can be faked/very low quality. You can’t just leave a species out of a BA without it getting noticed. Someone is going to ask, “hey what about red-legged frogs?” As far as survey work, well who’s to say they wrote down everything they’ve seen and heard. It used to be foresters doing spotted owl surveys, sometimes they still do. Can you trust them?
It would be nice to see someone else certifying murrelet surveyors, they do have a monopoly.
I didn’t even think of the racism until seeing these comments, but I wasn’t sure whether Raymond is Yurok, now I assume he is. My impression was that Raymond had been a widely respected forester, who had apparently come down with a serious drug and gambling problem. Based on what I read in the affidavit, and my experience with consulting biology, Raymond was clearly central to the “grift”. He set up a different billing method. He cleared invoices with no reports at very, very high rates, significantly higher than any other invoices. This could not have occurred without his full knowledge of what was going on.
That’s all, carry on everyone.
“Anonymous blog comments: that comment summarizes the impressions of the local biologist community, the times standard had some similar quotes with names. Its a statement about reputations, who would you site for that anyway?”
I’d site sources with actual names, JJ, not anonymous quotes from an anonymous blog – quotes that could have been placed by the writer himself.
Look, it’s not as if this hasn’t been done even more egregiously in the recent past by NCJ writer – again, Bob Doran did it by interviewing his fucking wife.
@Yikes,
Look, the whole “cognitive dissonance” quote was good writing. Burns could have written a sentence himself using that wording, but instead used the quote and gave credit. Do you have a problem with using an anonymous quote, or a problem with the accuracy of the quote and thus doubt the source? These are too different issues. Is this an issue of substance or are you calling out sloppy reporting?
Those who feel LeValley’s alleged criminal acts are completely out of character are failing to see how being “exceedingly generous” can also be seen as being “overly accommodating”. This is not a bad trait to have in business if you are in a service industry and that clearly is how LeValley has made his money as he:
Led ecotours – taking people where they want to go
Sold bird images – showing people what they want to see
Did biological consulting – telling people what they want to hear
It appears he was simply accommodating a client by going along with Raymond’s scheme.
And it does strike me as strange that someone who built his career in ecotourism and photography could develop a monopoly for training others in owl and plover research protocols. How the latter could occur would likely have a pretty clear paper trail.
@ JJ
“Do you have a problem with using an anonymous quote,”
Yes, I do, especially given the past history of the Journal coupled with the fact that periodcially we get lectured by various writers of theirs as to what constitutes good journalism.
Look, I have no doubts as to how that reflects the view of the BioWorld up here.
Most if not all embezzlement schemes on a local level are perpetuated by people in a position of trust, and those around them, closest to them are shocked and befuddled that these good people could do this, to the point of unbelief – in that regard, I have no doubt that the biologist community is in a state of disbelief.
Anyway, good discussion JJ, cheers.
At some point in time the defense attorneys/public defender will claim that their clients will not be given a FAIR trial here and have the case moved to Napa or Marin where they can charge more travel expenses;eat at the more fancier restaurants;drink organic wines and smoke a joint with their 215 patient clients.
JJ says: “Sean’s degree, whatever, he can do surveys, train people to do surveys and write reports. There’s other people out there doing surveys without degrees, this isn’t rocket science.”
I disagree on at least two counts.
First, of all, millions of dollars are often involved, and stakeholders need some degree of confidence in the scientific objectivity and integrity of these studies. In my own formal education, in addition to the importance of sound methodology, I had the sanctity of honest, objective, reliable, verifiable data collection and analysis drummed into me year after year.
Second, when biological consulting firms ignore academic credentials, they betray all of those who have majored in biology in college and can’t find work in our field. They also substantially cheapen the work, fueling an ongoing race to the bottom.
A birder is to a biologist as a coin collector is to an economist. McCallister is a birder. I still have an extensive coin collection from when I was a kid, but I don’t call myself an economist.
The huge problem I and many others have was discussed in class at HSU. Ryan Burns, your choice of photos in the article demonstrates bias against Roland Raymond and is being viewed as a form of racism by many in the Native American community. You chose a booking photo from the county jail for Roland Raymond’s picture, a very unflattering one. Yet, for the non-native defendants you chose professional biologist photos from their portfolios. LaValley and McAllister both had the same bail and similar charges as Raymond, all three graduated from HSU with professional degrees, and etc., so why didn’t you use the booking pictures of the biologist’s recent arrests? I will be rude and answer for you Ryan. It’s because you desire to demonize Roland Raymond as the “bad” Indian. You as a reporter have access to other photos of Roland Raymond, ones where he is active in his job, or giving a speech, or off his tribal employee ID card. Why didn’t you use a posed photo of him from his 20 plus year career? Of course that wouldn’t portray him in the stereotyped “bad” Indian role you clearly seek. Don’t BS us either that you are naive to what you have portrayed here, Roland Raymond MUST be guilty because he has a police mug shot in a newspaper and the non-Indian biologists have park like peaceful pictures with backdrops of nature and expensive field gear.
What you have done here is no different than what Time Magazine did on their cover photo of OJ Simpson where they digitally darkened his picture to make him appear more like the stereotyped “bad” black man. Google OJ Simpson/time magazine. The same treatment occurred with Tiger Woods except they whitened him.
Racism is alive and well at The Journal. A student in class suggested we start a boycott of the journal by students and local Native Americans. Good idea to me. The posed pictures of LaValley and McAllister in the field working with the lovely ocean backdrop say “white collar and innocent” while the posed mug shot of Raymond in police custody taken in a jail say “guilty”. This material, presented in this manner would not be allowed to be shown to a jury due to the partiality it would cause.
I meant “same warrant amount” instead of “same bail” above.
Wow, a far-left publication being accused of racism. This should be fun to watch.
All three of these guys are so laughably guilty it amazes me their friends and relatives can even pretend. I always love the “Why would he do this?” defense. People will always take easy money.
HSU prof, Mark Colwell, who is quoted in this article is actually the president of Mad River Biologists, While his collaboration with Levalley is mentioned his position with Mad River is not and it seems strange that the president of the company did not notice the large amount of money being laundered through his firm. The same page (on manta.com) that lists Colwell as “President”, lists Levalley as “Owner”. Tellingly, no name for a “Treasurer” is provided.
It definitely appears to me that North Coast Journal is attempting to stack the deck of public opinion in favor of Ron LeValley’s Mad River Biologists. Where is the background on Roland Raymond? Did his positive accomplishments fail to fit in the Journal’s frame that the LeValley and Sean McAlister were duped? There are plenty of examples of how the reporter either stretches the truth and/or calls out conclusions without sourcing or confirmation. If you read the 120-plus comments on the Humboldt Herald, the anonymous blog the reporter lifted the anonymous quote, it is clear that most who participated in the online discussion deeply question LeValley’s and McAlister’s innocence. I’m sure The Journal will say sources, like Craig Strong who said “there is no way in hell (LeValley) would intentionally do anything criminal,” told the story. Not so, for example, the reporter inserted, “Much or all of the cash…may well have been funneled back to Raymond,” with absolutely nothing to support it. How could anyone not smell at least a hint of the stench of illegitimacy? At the core, this was one man who represented a government handing dozens of checks to another man representing a business and both were completely aware no work was going to be done. After this plays out The Journal will be added to the list of people fooled. Judging by the sum of its work the NCJ is a good rag. Disappointment abounds.
I have to support the use of Raymond’s mug shot in this case. The man spent however long on the lam only adding to the allegations piling up against him. That itself becomes newsworthy and the photo illustrates that point. Heck, why isn’t more being made out this? It seems like getting accused of a crime then disappearing adds up to a pretty open and close case.
Plus, as easy as it is to play the race card for the NCJ’s choice of photo, I doubt that’s what they had in mind. When faced with design choices, they chose the most compelling photo—the one that shows a gaunt and disheveled man who just turned himself in after evading the law. If he’d had a clean, run of the mill mug shot, well then, a photo of him engaging in field would probably would’ve made the cut. He did this to himself, the NCJ just reported the facts.
To J-to-the-N-to-the-P (cool handle), I respect what you say but the only problem is the mug shot is from an old arrest last year! Read the caption on the picture. It has nothing to do with this case. Again, presenting Raymond in this manner compared to the other two defendants would not be allowed in a court of law but is in the court of public opinion because it fits The Journal’s agenda. That is to demonize him as the bad Indian employee compared to the pictures of the white collar non-Indian men displayed in posed pictures. I am as angry as anyone else about all involved stealing money from one of the poorest non-casino Tribes in the State, but let’s treat all equally and impartially when reporting.
I, as well, fully agree with what Buzz posted. Ron is a biologist, due to education and formalizing sound scientific methodologies that are reflected in his Master’s Thesis. However, agreeing with Buzz’s analogy, Sean McCallister is a coin collector, not a professional, more of a naturalist (but certainly no Niko Tinbergen). Also as a member of the Wildlife Society, I was 100% in disbelief and disagreement with Sean being awarded professional of the year. On par and equal on the stage of others who have contributed more to our field and conservation than a few Rons and ten Seans, by far. Therefore, our field is scattered with firms that have excellent naturalists, but non-scientists, contributing towards reports and documents that heavily impact either a species or industry without good sound science.
In addition, as also mentioned, someone really needs to investigate why MRB is the only firm allowed to train surveyors for both firms and agencies for murrelets and plovers. This has always seemed like a racket to me and many I know. How can someone who decides who get certified, also compete for contracts against those they do (or don’t) certify? How can the agencies comply with this? Someone needs to look deeper into whether there is a conflict of interest of MRB getting contracts with State Parks, while one of the higher-up biologists is “well-connected” to MRB.
Ron and Sean (has a nice ring to it) got what they were after. I bet they’re really MAD now. I wonder if Ron and Sean had any heated conversations about this around the banks of the Mad River (even though their office was in Eureka and not in what would be more geographically appropriate Arcata or Mackinleyville).
About Roland… it’s a shame to see drugs wreck havoc on people. Stay away from METH, HEROIN, and PHARMACEUTICALS people, please!
Fellow Biologist, I got out of marbled murrelet/snowy plover surveys long ago because of the MRB monopoly. Not only did MRB hold a training monopoly, but they used their unique position to compete for surveying contracts, or to strong-arm subcontracts from other firms…..and this was encouraged by local agency biologists. It was grossly unfair at face value, and I (and others) thought the whole scene was deeply repugnant.
Again, this isn’t just an MRB problem. This is a problem of an insular North Coast, hipper-than-thou community of consulting and agency biologists who have been gaming the system for a long, long time. I’m certainly glad I wasn’t within 100 miles of MRB when the lights came on.
I worked with Roland Raymond something like ten years ago when he was Yurok representative to the California Indian Forest and Fire Management Council (CIFFMC) and I served as Cultural Heritage Manager and participated in CIFFMC activities in my capacity as Tribal Anthropologist for the Karuk Tribe of Clifornia. I was stunned to see the arrest photo of Roland and would have never recognized him as the dedicated competent forester I had known a decade in the past. He was a fine, intelligent, clean cut professional working for the good of his tribe and for the forests of California. What has happened to bring Roland to this sad point in his life is another tragic instance of the toll drugs, alcohol and gambling take on people, but that was not the Roland I knew and respected before these substances and habits took over his life. This is not to say that Roland is not responsible for his actions but it is to say that this is a different situation than one in which a person, clean, sober and of right mind, makes a conscious decision to violate the law and the confidence which has been placed in him.
J. Salter makes a good point above about how in our attempt to understand criminal behavior we look for circumstances that might cause someone to break the law. Drugs, alcohol, and gambling are frequently invoked as forcing factors as is severe emotional distress – i.e. “crimes of passion”.
That is why the actions of the two biologists are so hard to comprehend and why friends and colleagues are struggling to understand what could have driven the alleged embezzlement. Some would almost rather hear that Levalley has some substance abuse issue that clouded his judgment than think with a clear mind he regularly laundered funds through his firm. If they were “clean, sober and right of mind” their actions are all the more inexcusable.
Whenever people issue an unsolicited “I’m not a racist,” (see the comment above), you can be sure that they are indeed racist. Of course, anyone who calls people “environmental communists,” is obviously pining for the good-old-days of the 1950s.