Cops: Angry over sap, man cuts down neighbor's tree – and sends it onto his own apartment house

PITTSTON, Pa. (AP) — Police say a Pennsylvania man who believed sap from a tree next door was ruining his car, chopped it down, causing the tree to crash into an apartment building he owns, damaging it so badly it had to be condemned.

Five others who lived in the building are now homeless.

Fifty-one-year-old Raymond Mazzarella has been in the Luzerne County jail on reckless endangerment and other charges since Monday following the Saturday incident in Pittston Township. WNEP-TV (http://bit.ly/2bCEL57 ) says he's also charged with aggravated assault after allegedly getting into a fight with a neighbor.

A township code official says the tree wasn't on Mazzarella's property, but its branches were hanging over his parking place.

Mazzarella doesn't have an attorney and faces a preliminary hearing Aug. 31.