Eugene Man Sentenced for Lookout Point Trespass

EUGENE, OR—United States Magistrate Judge Thomas Coffin sentenced Wiley Roy Nelson, 21, of Eugene to two years of probation and 60 hours of community service after accepting his guilty plea to entering a restricted area at Lookout Point Dam southeast of Eugene on March 2, 2011. Nelson faced a maximum possible sentence of six months in prison.

The incident at Lookout Point attracted national media attention when security cameras recorded a man wearing a camouflaged jacket climbing over razor wire in the middle of the night with a camera. The surveillance video showed the man taking pictures along the top of the dam. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers offered a $1,000 reward through its Corps Watch program to anyone who could identify the intruder.

“Our dams are critical assets to our local communities, and we respond decisively to any attempt to compromise their security,” said Erik Petersen, operations project manager for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Willamette Valley Projects, which operates Lookout Point Dam. “In this case, our security systems detected the intruder and our Corps Watch property protection program helped identify and bring him to justice.”

The investigation was conducted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Federal Bureau of Investigation and Oregon State Police. The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney William “Bud” Fitzgerald.