A man criminally charged with chopping down his neighbor’s trees on a wealthy Massachusetts island scored a legal victory and had the case dropped.

Jonathan Jacoby, 55, was charged with felony vandalism, trespassing, and destroying trees on another person’s land in July after he allegedly cut down several of his Nantucket neighbor’s trees.

Earlier this year, his neighbor Patricia Belford, 80, accused Jacoby of breaking onto her property and cutting down 16 trees without her permission.

According to her $1.4 million lawsuit, Jacoby removed decades-old cherry, cedar and Leyland Cypress trees from the home in February ‘with the specific purpose of improving the ocean view from his own property’ – which he was trying to sell.

He was facing up to three years in prison until his lawyer got the case dismissed before his arraignment hearing on October 27, reported the Nantucket Current.

Jacoby’s attorney, Jim Merberg, requested the charges be dropped after consulting with prosecutors.

Prosecutors told District Court Judge James Sullivan they would not be moving forward with the arraignment and acknowledged that Belford’s lawsuit had been moved to federal court.

In the lawsuit, Jacoby is accused of doing unauthorized landscaping to make his stunning 4,491-square-foot beach compound at 3 Tautemo Way more appealing to potential buyers.

Nearly eight months after the alleged tree chopping, Jacoby’s property sold for $7,875,000 on October 7, over $2 million less than the whopping $9,975,000 he was asking for.

The contemporary home was put on the market in May and the property listing described it as having ‘sweeping views of the Atlantic Ocean’ and Hummock Pond.

Belford and Jacoby are next-door neighbors sharing a property line, but most of the trees taken down were far from that border, she said. 

Hummock Pond, a salt-water pond on the southwestern part of Nantucket, and Cisco Beach are just fractions of a mile away from Tautemo Way.

And the only things inhibiting those ‘sweeping views’ of the nearby bodies of water were apparently the trees the Belfords planted in the 1970s.

Belford argued the trees added not only privacy, but value to her home – with a nursey estimating they each could cost thousands of dollars. 

‘Based on the number of trees removed, the replacement cost alone exceeds $486,000,’ the document stated.

‘This does not account for the historic value, loss of screening, increased noise, reduction in overall property value.

‘Jacoby’s actions were not only economically damaging but also emotionally devastating for Belford.’

In his response to Belford’s lawsuit, Jacoby denied any wrongdoing and insisted that he had permission to chop down the trees and had done approved landscaping for his neighbor before.

‘Jacoby had permission to remove the trees in question, just as he had permission to remove, and did remove, without complaint or question, two other trees on the same property on a previous occasion,’ his filing said.

The next court hearing for the federal lawsuit is scheduled for April 6, 2026.