REPUBLIC – A Ferry County man has been charged for allegedly threatening to shoot nine people floating the Kettle River last summer in an ongoing dispute over who owns the river.

Ferry County prosecutor James von Sauer charged Harold Honeycutt with coercion stemming from the July 3 incident where the river flows through Honeycutt’s property near Orient.

The case, filed Sept. 29 in Ferry County Superior Court, is on hold while Honeycutt, 73, undergoes chemotherapy for throat cancer. Honeycutt said he plans to contest the charge when the case goes to trial in March.

The charge is a gross misdemeanor, punishable by a year in jail and a $5,000 fine.

It stems from an opinion von Sauer issued in 2003 that stated the river is public property up to the high water mark. The prosecutor contends Honeycutt has no more ownership of the river than the nine people he accused of trespassing.

Honeycutt, a former tavern owner, was charged with coercion because he allegedly tried to force the floaters to quit doing something they had a right to do.

Von Sauer said in court documents that the threats occurred the day Honeycutt called Sheriff Pete Warner to the Orient Bridge over the Kettle River to complain about alleged trespassing and illegal parking.

Honeycutt contends his problems with rafters began about four years ago when a group of them blocked his driveway to unload rafts and he was unable to get help for a sister with a medical problem.

Honeycutt claims rafters have shot at him. Rafters have complained Honeycutt fired shots over their heads.

Von Sauer intervened in August 2003 after numerous complaints from rafters and boaters that Honeycutt had brandished a gun and threatened to shoot them for trespassing. Von Sauer issued an opinion that the public has a right to be on the river.

Honeycutt bases his claim to the river on a 1925 Stevens County Superior Court case that said the shallow river was unnavigable and therefore private.

Von Sauer says the river clearly is navigable, as evidenced by the numerous boaters who use it, and that the old court case was never upheld by an appeals court.