Tom Selleck was once accused of stealing – this is how he settled the dispute

Sprawling across 65 acres of land, the Hidden Valley property–once owned by Den Martin–boasts a 1926 ranch house, a horse corral and a 20-acre working avocado farm, which he harvests in late spring.

The farm gives Selleck and his family an abundance of privacy and avocados but it’s also the source of the actor’s only controversy.

During California’s four-year drought, which resulted in mandatory water cutbacks on cities and towns, CBC reports that “the district determined that several times from 2013 to 2015 a water-tender truck filled from a hydrant within the Calleguas district and delivered that water to Selleck’s ranch.”

A complaint filed by Calleguas Municipal Water District against Selleck, reveals that a hydrant in their district was tapped to supply water to his ranch in Hidden Valley, northwest of Los Angeles.

Jay Spurgin, the city’s public works director, explained the metered hydrant was in Thousand Oaks, part of the Calleguas water district that was installed for use at a construction site.

“Mr. Selleck previously paid for all the water that he utilized, which the Calleguas Municipal Water District acknowledged had not been stolen,” said Marty Singer, an attorney for Selleck, in a statement to the Los Angeles Times.

It was unclear if Selleck paid the construction company for use of the water, but Calleguas water district general manager Susan Mulligan said in a statement that it was an irrelevant point.

“No one has a legal right to district water by simply paying a rate to another water user based on the volume of water questionably obtained,” Mulligan said.

Settling the lawsuit, Selleck agreed to pay the almost $22,000 bill of a private investigator that was hired by a California agency to confirm that truckloads of water were destined the actor’s ranch during an ongoing drought.

Strangely, Selleck doesn’t even like avocados.

“I don’t eat ’em…Honestly, they make me gag. But it’s just as well. I’ll sell my portion,” he said.

Although what he did, especially in the middle of a major drought, was wrong, we think that if Tom Selleck’s biggest controversy is stealing water, he deserves a pass.