The Mapeses and the Pollacks moved to the quaint Oregon city after each family had endured their own tragedies in 2018.
Andrew Pollack’s daughter, Meadow, was one of the 17 victims of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre. Meagan and Keith Mapes settled into a new life in Eagle Point after the historic Camp Fire in Paradise, California, a neighbor of both families told the South Florida Sun Sentinel.
But the small community on South Fork Little Butte Creek Road in Jackson County’s Eagle Point has become the site of a land dispute between the two families, culminating with a 15-count indictment against Pollack, 57, last month.
“They came here from tragedy, so did Andrew Pollack,” neighbor Chris Cooper said. “And what Andrew Pollack has done, he’s turned this normally quiet little Lake Creek community upside down.”
Pollack is accused of coercion, stalking, menacing and disorderly conduct, beginning sometime in December 2022, court records shared with the Sun Sentinel by the neighbor show. The indictment said, in part, that Pollack’s “repeated and unwanted” contact with the Mapeses has made them fear for their and their children’s safety, has created “a risk of public inconvenience, annoyance and alarm by engaging in violent, tumultuous or threatening behavior,” and had attempted to put the Mapeses “in fear of imminent serious physical injury.”
Pollack’s attorneys, Eric Schwartzreich and Bradford Cohen, said in an emailed statement earlier this week that Pollack acted lawfully and on his own property.
“The precedent in this case is dangerous,” the statement said. “Here the government has sought charges attempting to criminalize private landowner’s lawful activity on private land. This case is dangerous and concerning to landowners everywhere, not just in Oregon.”
The Rogue Valley Times reported that Pollack filed a civil complaint in Jackson County Circuit Court in April 2021 — two years after purchasing property in the 8000 block of South Fork Little Butte Creek Road. The Mapeses bought land nearby months earlier and the families disagreed about the property lines. Earlier this year, a judge ruled in favor of Pollack, and the Mapeses filed an appeal early last month, the Rogue Valley Times reported.
Cooper, the neighbor of both families who has lived in the area since 2005, said he has witnessed some of the alleged harassment from Pollack and that the Mapeses and others who live nearby have since moved from their homes to avoid the issues. Cooper said Pollack put a propane cannon, which makes loud noises to scare away birds and other wildlife, at the edge of his property, facing land owned by the Mapeses.
“That cannon was so loud,” Cooper said. “When we were going across the Mapeses’ driveway and bridge, I was getting disoriented, and this thing was going off every few seconds.”
Cooper and his wife sent a letter to Jackson County Assistant District Attorney Melissa LeRitz with a list of alleged issues ongoing in the 8000 block of South Fork Little Butte Creek Road. The Coopers wrote that the propane cannon pointed toward the Mapeses’ home was “set on auto fire for approximately seven continuous hours” on one day in January and shorter, periodic “house-shaking explosions that caused (a) kindergartner to awake from sleep screaming” on another night.
Pollack’s attorneys said in their statement the issue is “a one sided land dispute, where Andy Pollack and his land are the victims.”
“This should not be a civil matter, let alone a criminal matter … Mr. Pollack has prevailed on related civil matters regarding this property, and will continue to prevail in criminal court.”
The Mapeses did not return a voicemail Monday night.
