UNION TOWNSHIP, Ohio — Evans Landscaping owner Doug Evans must pay nearly $900,000 in damages and penalties to end a five-year legal dispute with a Union Township neighbor, after he stripped thousands of trees to build a commercial park while enjoying a tax break and zoning exemptions meant for working farmers.
Clermont County Court of Common Pleas Judge Kevin Miles sided with neighbor Jason Gordon in a July 11 order, writing that Evans’ company, Mt. Carmel Farms, engaged in “deliberate fraud,” so he awarded the maximum punitive damages.
“MCF built pole barns on the basis that they were for an agricultural purpose and rented to commercial businesses on the premise that the businesses were agricultural. Each year for six years, MCF affirmed to Union Township that its entire property was put to agricultural use. In short, by deliberately operating under the guise of agriculture, MCF ushered in every type of harm the plaintiffs experienced in nuisance. At trial, Mr. Evans acknowledged that MCF was dishonest in claiming that its tenants' uses were agricultural,” Miles wrote in his decision.
When Gordon and his wife, Nicole, built a log cabin in rural Union Township in 2005, they were surrounded by woodlands and wildlife.
That changed when an elderly neighbor sold 11 acres of family farmland to Evans in 2012.
WATCH: How Doug Evans is accused of ruining neighbors' 'slice of paradise'
“He immediately tore all the old farm buildings down and started building pole barns and started renting them out to various businesses,” Gordon said. “I had literally hundreds of cars and trucks every day, back and forth, all day every day.”
The Gordons endured constant car alarms, banging on steel and motorcycles driving high-speed laps. They lived with heavy dust that killed their garden, and constant traffic from large semi-trucks, excavators, bulldozers and mine-type dump trucks down their one-lane gravel easement.
It prevented their young children from playing outside or riding their bikes.
Evans erected buildings that were meant to look like red barns and rented them out to at least six commercial tenants, such as a steel fabricator, concrete sawing company and an auto repair shop.
“To try and protect the peacefulness that we had back here, I think our only option at the time was to fight it legally,” Gordon said. “So, five and a half years ago, we finally filed suit. But I’ve been dealing with it for over a decade.”
After the first WCPO 9 I-Team report in 2020, Clermont County Auditor Linda Fraley removed Evans’ Current Agricultural Use Valuation, or CAUV, which is meant to give large tax breaks to working farmers so they can afford to keep their land.
“Evidently, from your pictures, I’m sure that it would be a change in status,” Fraley said in an interview in January 2020, after viewing overhead footage of Evans’ property captured by a WCPO drone. “He’s at very high risk of losing it (CAUV status) based on what you’re showing me.”
Separate from the CAUV tax break, Gordon also complained to Union Township officials about why commercial buildings were being erected on land zoned for estate residential use, which is intended for large lots.
NEWTOWN, Ohio (July 7, 2015) -- Local authorities and federal agents raided the premises of Evans Landscaping's Newtown location on Round Bottom road early Tuesday morning.
Gordon sued Union Township and then Planning and Zoning Director Cory Wright for selective enforcement of its own zoning regulations and violating his constitutional rights as a property owner. But the 12th District Court of Appeals ruled in 2021 that qualified immunity shielded Wright from claims like this.
“I feel like the justice system is kind of broken. I could commit a significant crime, and I would be entitled to speedy justice. But in a civil suit here, I am 5 1/2 years later with a judgment that cost me a ton of money,” Gordon said. “Especially when you’re up against someone with the resources Doug Evans has. How can anybody seek justice in a legal system like that? It’s difficult.”
Evans did not respond to a request for comment made through his attorney, Brian O’Connor.
“The period of time the plaintiffs were damaged occurred over a long span of years, beginning when their children were little and lasting until their middle and high school years,” the judge wrote. “In addition to all of the physical discomforts, the plaintiffs have lost time and memories with their children outside in their yard that they can never get back.”
The Gordons once enjoyed hiking through the trees with their children, playing in the yard with them, having bonfires, seeing wildlife and listening to the sounds of nature in their “own slice of paradise,” the judge wrote.
When Evans moved next door to them, he tore down old farm buildings and removed most trees, erected or refurbished nine metal buildings, paved some of the land with asphalt and concrete, and added a retention pond.
“The evidence before the court demonstrates that the turning point in the plaintiffs' enjoyment of their property is when MCF began developing and illegally operating numerous commercial businesses on its property,” the judge wrote.
The judge ordered Evans to pay: $233,500 in compensatory damages and lost property value; $467,00 in punitive damages; $65,925 in legal fees plus yet-to-be submitted lawyer fees for 2025; and $96,000 in contempt of court fines.
The judge fined Evans $1,000 per day for the 96 days Evans defied a court order to stop illegally using his buildings. The judge also issued a permanent injunction “to prevent future illegal use.”
But Gordon is disappointed the judge did not force Evans to tear down the buildings or stop using the easement on his property.
“Would it have been easier to just move and find a different place? Probably. It's cost me quite a lot over the years,” Gordon said. “It’s a lot of time. That’s probably the biggest thing that he’s stolen from me is time.”
A jury in December 2018 found Evans and his company, Evans Landscaping, guilty of defrauding the city of Cincinnati and the state of Ohio by taking millions in demolition work that was meant for minority and small business contractors.
Evans was released from prison after serving six months of a 21-month sentence for minority contracting fraud in 2021.
Since then, he's faced multiple legal battles, including being accused of contempt multiple times by Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost.
Yost sued Doug Evans in 2021 in the hopes of resolving Evans' decades worth of environmental violations, but three years later, health officials are still complaining about buried construction waste, unpermitted work, lack of cleanup, and pollution seeping into the Little Miami River at three Evans facilities near Newtown.
State prosecutors are currently taking that case to the 1st District Court of Appeals.
Hamilton County Public Health inspectors issued three new notices of violation against Evans in 2025 for problems at his facilities on Round Bottom, Broadwell, and Mt. Carmel roads.
Meanwhile, a Hamilton County jury ordered Evans to pay more than $22 million in damages to Revolution Fitness earlier this month. That jury found Evans and his company BEE Holdings LP, had engaged in fraudulent activity.
