A man amassed around 1,000 pounds of trash at a campsite in Arizona’s Tonto National Forest, where, he told police, he’d been living for eight years, according to court documents.
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Mark Aaron Gatz pleaded guilty Monday to violating fire restrictions and unlawful residential use of a federal forest as part of a plea agreement.
Under a judgment filed Tuesday, he was sentenced to three months of probation and ordered to pay $20 in criminal penalties — avoiding restitution of up to $5,000 to the U.S. Forest Service — and he agreed to avoid visiting national forests in Arizona and using cannabis.
His lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday night. An assistant U.S. attorney for the District of Arizona did not immediately respond to a request for information.
Gatz was arrested June 25 and ordered held for trial, according to federal case files. He was initially charged with building illegal fires, overstaying time limits for camping, leaving trash in unsanitary conditions and related counts as part of an 18-count federal indictment.
“Defendant has been living illegally on the U.S.F.S. lands and has violated fire restrictions despite prior warnings and citations for doing so,” U.S. Magistrate Judge Camille D. Bibles wrote in a June 30 order.
In probable cause statements for an arrest warrant, U.S. Forest Service officers wrote that they’d come into contact with Gatz last year and this year. Gatz compiled a collection of refuse, including “tires, plastic bags, trash bags, aluminum cans, and other items of trash,” at a campsite he occupied for two years as of May, the officers wrote.
Officers found Gatz’s SUV under a canopy structure in the woods, about half a mile down a two-way dirt trail, the statements allege.
“The campfire was located inside an illegal structure that was built with stone for cooking food,” according to one of the statements.
One officer estimated the surrounding trash pile weighed 1,000 pounds.
In May 2025, federal officers warned Gatz to clean up the trash and leave the campsite within two weeks, according to the statements, filed in federal court in Flagstaff. Campers are limited to 14 days in Tonto National Forest, the western edge of which is about 28 miles east-northeast of Phoenix.
By the time he was arrested this June 25, Gatz told law enforcement, he had lived in the forest a total of about eight years, according to the statements.
By then he had amassed six federal warrants, and officers noted that he had been warned before about building campfires amid weather and other restrictions, the statements said.
