May 20, 2019

Cherry trees destroyed at former pro football player’s California orchard

After 2,000 cherry trees on Former San Francsico 49er Jeremy Newberry’s Brentwood, California, farm were destroyed early last week – an estimated $25,000 loss – Newberry is offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to the vandals.

Newberry told the Bay Area News Group that he thinks it was a personal attack –someone or a group of people with a “vendetta” against him. He had planted the trees about six weeks ago on his property –  which he purchased within the past year – and found Wednesday that half of the 4,100 trees he had planted were destroyed.

“It had to be multiple people, it would have taken one person 7 or 8 hours,” Newberry said.

Newberry contacted the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Department, and deputies took a report of what happened. As of Saturday, though, no suspects had been identified. Newberry said he has his suspicions as to who did it, he said; he thinks that someone will turn them in.

For more on the East Bay Times story, visit here.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Newberry, former two-time Pro Bowl offensive lineman , said Sunday vandals destroyed thousands of newly planted cherry trees at his orchard.

Newberry, who played center for the San Francisco 49ers, Oakland Raiders and San Diego Chargers, told the San Francisco Chronicle he planted more than 4,000 trees on his family’s orchard in October and, when he went to work Wednesday, about half of them had been destroyed.

The San Francisco Chronicle also reported:

“It would take two grown men, literally, and probably six or seven hours, to tear up those trees,” Newberry told the Chronicle. “Just the sheer amount of time it takes to do this. It was a heartbreak.”

Newberry said he believes the vandals created more than $30,000 worth of damage and whoever did it knew the family wasn’t living at the orchard while their new home was being built. Currently, the orchard doesn’t have power and doesn’t have a security system, according to the paper.

Newberry filed a police report with the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office. He said the trees would be replanted next February.

The former offensive lineman told the newspaper he now plans to sleep in a motor home on the farmland in order to watch out for anything suspicious.

“It’s crazy that I even have to do that,” he said. “It’s disheartening, but we’re going to have to continue to move forward and not let it discourage us.”