A wealthy CEO who improved the ocean view from her $3.5 million Maine vacation home by poisoning her wealthy neighbor’s trees faces a new criminal investigation after paying $1.7 million in fines and agreements.
Amelia Bond secretly sprayed four pounds of the lethal herbicide Tebuthiuron on trees belonging to Lisa Gorman in 2022, before offering to pay for their removal when they began to die.
Bond, former director of the $500 million St. Louis Foundation, has since paid $1.5 million in compensation to Gorman after evidence revealed her scheme.
But the state attorney general is now considering pressing charges after the poison leaked into a nearby park and beach, uniting Camden residents in fury.
“As far as I’m concerned, anyone foolish enough to poison trees right next to the ocean should be prosecuted,” said neighbor Paul Hodgson.
The poisoning opened Bond’s view of Laite Beach, Camden Harbor and the Atlantic.
Amelia Bond, owner of a $3.5 million vacation home in Camden, Maine, admitted to using herbicide on oak trees owned by her neighbor.
Gorman, the widow of late LL Bean chairman Leon Gorman, became suspicious when trees, along with large areas of vegetation, began dying in her garden overlooking picturesque Laite Beach and Camden Harbour.
Bond’s holiday home is immediately behind hers, further up the hill, and the trees had obscured their view, but they seemed understanding when they began to wither.
But Gorman asked landscapers Bartlett Tree Experts to look at the trees and took soil samples that showed two oak trees had been treated with herbicide, which had spread to other trees, including maple, blueberry and dogwood.
In November 2022, local authorities also examined the site and spoke with Amelia Bond, who admitted to using poison on the land.
She told Maine state investigators that she purchased the poison in her home state of Missouri, intending to apply it to two oak trees that she claimed she believed were dying.
She and her husband, Arthur Bond III, an architect and nephew of former U.S. Sen. Kit Bond, have so far paid $4,500 to resolve violations with the Maine Pesticide Control Board, and $180,000 to resolve violations with the city.
The couple footed a $30,000 bill for additional environmental testing and paid more than $1.5 million to Gorman in a legal settlement.
But Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey has announced an investigation amid growing anger over mounting damage in the town of 5,000 people.
“Wealth and power do not always go hand in hand with intelligence, education and morals,” said Tom Hedstrom, chairman of the Select Board.
“This was atrocious and disgusting, and whatever other words you want to use to describe abhorrent behavior.”
Lisa and Leon Gorman, president and CEO of LL Bean, founded by their grandfather. León died in 2015, aged 80.
Gorman’s house (left) is located downhill from Bond’s house (right)
Rep. Vicki Doudera, D-Camden, said she intends to address the maximum $4,500 fine the Maine Pesticide Control Board was able to assess.
“It makes me very angry,” Doudera said. ‘This situation, the moment I found out about it, I thought, ‘Wow! These people are going to get a slap on the wrist. That’s just not right.’
Tebuthiuron is the same herbicide used in 2010 by an angry Alabama football fan to kill oak trees at Toomer’s Corner at Auburn University following a Crimson Tide loss to their archrival.
The incident earned a prison sentence for Harvey Updyke, who admitted to poisoning the trees.
The poison contaminates the soil and does not decompose, so it continues to kill plants.
And at Auburn University, the removal of about 1,780 tons (1,615 metric tons) of contaminated material was necessary to reach negligible levels of the chemical in the soil.
“Anyone foolish enough to poison trees right next to the ocean should be prosecuted, as far as I’m concerned,” said Camden resident Paul Hodgson.
An attorney for the Bonds, members of the city’s Toney Yacht Club, said his clients had no comment but “continue to take the allegations against them seriously.”
“They continue to cooperate with the city of Camden, Maine, and the Gormans, as they have for the past two years,” he added.
And Hodgson said the couple were far from the only authorized foreigners who had illegally upgraded their sea views.
“They just pay the fine because they have a lot of money,” he added. “That’s the city we live in.”