He severed some. Others he sliced just enough so they would slowly die. In a year's time, authorities said, he wiped out more than 500 trees near an upscale retirement community just south of Las Vegas.
Greenery, he had complained to a homeowners committee, was blocking his view of the Strip.
In November, a jury convicted Hoffman, 60, on 10 charges in the destruction of nearly $250,000 worth of mesquite and other trees. He will likely face sentencing next month and could get as much as 35 years in prison.
The "arborcide," as one lawyer dubbed it, has resonated in booming Clark County, where hillsides in recent years have been overrun with sand-colored homes and transplanted trees. In many neighborhoods, glimpses of the Spring and Muddy Mountain ranges -- and the Strip's neon skyline -- have vanished.
And:
Friends testified during the weeklong trial that Hoffman was in Arizona or Santa Rosa, Calif., when some of the trees were destroyed. Debbie Hoffman said other suspects were spied lurking in areas thick with trees: the driver of a red truck, motorcycle-riding teenagers and a man with black-rimmed glasses who resembled an "old farmer from the Mediterranean."
Jurors didn't buy it. They convicted the stout and graying Hoffman of malicious destruction of trees. His attorney plans to ask for probation.
"It's like you can murder someone and it's OK," Hoffman's wife said, "but you're accused of killing trees and it's like, execute him."
No, just chop his limbs off.
