The term"Hush Money" comes to mind.

I've kept up with this "adventure" throughout, and I do not recall ever seeing any such "official" statement, in any news source. It's possible I missed it. ANy chance you can provide or recall where you read that?

That Friends of Lake Miona, paid instead of the perps.
Could the be one and the same? Or, do you have some inside information?

Possibly, but why look a gift horse in the mouth? They were offered a deal that involved making restitution. Let them make full restitution and let's move on. I'm happy that their conscience finally got the best of them.

It might be only a quarter of a gift horse and I seriously doubt their conscience is what got to them; public pressure of various sorts did.

They may not be out of the woods yet if this was not a legally qualified (way too soft) deal.

Maybe the AG or another legal authority will ax the deal.

Is it just me or does the recent post remind anyone of the Salem witch trials or the book, The Scarlet Letter? Maybe the persons responsible could wear a big "C" for cutter.... Let's move on folks, nothing to see here.

Are you serious? The perpetrator(s) caused $40,000 in damage to property--payable by you and me. This is a felony punishable by five years in prison under Florida law.

It is just you.

In the absence of other information, I would assume the "Friends of Lake Miona" are actually the individual(s) responsible. It isn't clear to me why anyone else would pay. This was apparently handled through an attorney to preserve the anonymity. Presumably these sorts of "deals" have some documentation to the effect that there will be no future prosecution. It is not clear to me how you document a deal when you don't know who the deal is with.

The difference is that cutting down these trees is illegal.

The online news original article of the offer covers this issue. Do a search on that site.

I was being facetious.

There was not $40,000 in damage. Think it was 5 trees. The state fine is what all the money is about. They could plant 5 trees for less than $5,000.

Yeah, I did find and re-read that article regarding CDD5 deciding to not prosecute. And although it did mention that Dist. Mgr. Tutt inquired with the local State Attorney's Office on the matter of deciding to pursue prosecution or not, it sounded like all that took place was a casual phone call, at best, about the matter. I don't believe the State Attorney has officially weighed in on this via any correspondence or other communication, which I would interpret as Ms. Tutt not having more than a "what if" type phone conversation with someone in that office.

The other point that I don't think has ever been very clearly established is who, exactly, is/are the "damaged parties" that would have a say in whether to prosecute or not?? Is it Ms. Tutt and the VCCDD, the SLCDD, the Projectwide Advisory Committee (who seems to have been paying the fines and remediation costs so far), CDD5 where the damage occurred, CDD's 5-10 who are sharing in the costs by decision of the PWAC? Or, is it the "Developer" in the form of VLSI (Vilalges of Lake-Sumter, Inc.)?

Seems like the check was made out to SLCDD. Be interesting to see how those funds are now re-allocated back to the Districts that have been assessed a share of the costs.