A 55-year-old man who abandoned 11 dilapidated RVs on Portland streets must serve a 25-day jail sentence, do community service picking up garbage and reimburse the city $7,500 for hauling away and dismantling the eyesores.

Multnomah County Circuit Judge Gregory Silver worked out what he said was a fitting formula for the community service: eight hours of trash collection along the side of the road for every RV that John Phillip Maher abandoned -- for a total of 88 hours.

Maher’s case represented a rare criminal prosecution of people who contribute to Portland’s derelict RV problem. But the number of RVs involved and Maher’s defiance made his case an extreme example.

Police said he told them that he’d set out to tear apart and recycle the RVs to make money and to help the city. But he apparently became overwhelmed and angry at government officials who told him he needed a dismantler's license and a proper place to store the RVs before he ripped them apart.

He ultimately left them along the shoulders of the 10000 block of North Lombard Street and 5000 block of North Columbia Court last spring and ignored police orders to remove them.

Opportunists stripped some of them of their wheels or aluminum siding. One caught fire, and garbage and intravenous needles began to accumulate around many them, investigators said.

Amid growing public outrage, city officials have been on a crusade to clear the streets of dilapidated motorhomes, some that have been abandoned and others that serve as unsanctioned living quarters for people on the verge of homelessness. In the past year, the city has towed hundreds off the streets and public property.

In October, a six-person jury unanimously found Maher guilty of conducting a motor vehicle dismantling business without a license. Silver also found Maher guilty of 22 state and city code violations for unlawfully storing property on the street and abandoning vehicles.

The following month, Maher phoned the city and expressed his interest in getting back in the business of dismantling RVs, although he’s contended all along that he doesn’t need a dismantler’s license.

During his sentencing hearing Friday, he still said he was guilty of “nothing at all.”

Prosecutor Kevin Demer argued in court papers that Maher is someone who just doesn’t get it: He was told by different people that he needed a dismantling licence but “chose to ignore that and try to make a buck.”

Maher is scheduled to book himself into jail at the end of this week.

-- Aimee Green