MAD RIVER BIOLOGISTS’ OFFICES OVERLOOK THE GAZEBO IN OLD TOWN EUREKA. PHOTOS BY RYAN BURNS
To people who know and have worked with LeValley, 65, and McAllister, 45, over the past 20-plus years the allegations seemed incongruous to the point of lunacy. “Even though I don’t know what’s going on, I know Ron,” said Crescent City biologist Craig Strong, who was just a kid when he first met LeValley. “And there is no way in hell that he would intentionally do anything criminal. He’s an honest man, and he’s a really good biologist, too.” It’s not just personal friends who feel this way. A March 2 comment on the Humboldt Herald blog articulated a common reaction: “The accusations levied against LeValley and McAllister are so wildly inconsistent with their reputations that I was left with some serious cognitive dissonance.” While Raymond evaded law enforcement on the morning of Feb. 23, McAllister was arrested without incident at the Old Town Eureka offices of Mad River Biologists, a professional consulting firm where he works as an associate biologist. LeValley, who founded Mad River Biologists 30 years ago, turned himself in that evening. Both men have since been released on dramatically reduced bail ($150,000 for LeValley, $50,000 for McAllister). Late last month the embezzlement investigation was taken over by the FBI and the U.S. Department of the Interior. The case likely will be prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The next court date is
scheduled for May 1. The community, meanwhile, doesn’t know quite what to make of the charges. Much of LeValley and McAllister’s consulting work has been on controversial projects, including California’s Marine Life Protection Act Initiative, for which LeValley served as co-chair of the North Coast Study Region’s science advisory team, and conservation-oriented surveys on threatened and endangered species such as the northern spotted owl, the western snowy plover and the marbled murrelet. Critics of those efforts have seized on the biologists’ arrests in an attempt to discredit their work. Others simply wonder how LeValley and McAllister got mixed up in this mess.
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Evidence against
all three suspects is laid out in an affidavit written by A.C. Field, chief investigator for the Del Norte County District Attorney’s Office. The main character in this storyline is definitely Roland Raymond. Circumstantial evidence against him dates back several years. For example, in the last three years of his employment Raymond allegedly used a tribal credit card to buy gasoline — an average of $1,000 worth per month — for a Ford F-250 truck that belongs to the continued on next page
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