The Case of the $60,000 Gloves
Plea deal delayed for Sumner "Power Couple” because ex-town official needs to learn how guilty plea to theft will impact her high-paying manager-and-counselor job at the state psychiatric hospital.
This is a story of petty theft from a volunteer fire department, but more importantly it’s about the lack of transparency and accountability in small-town Maine and state government. And since the local media has ignored the goings-on in Sumner, I’ve prepared this EXHAUSTIVE report, including all the receipts.
In the 13 months since Kelly Stewart was arrested on felony theft charges for allegedly stealing from the Sumner Volunteer Fire Department, she’s received a $10,000 pay raise at her state job, plus one of her counseling licenses was renewed on the state’s dime, and she was given additional supervisory responsibilities as the “Forensic Outpatient Services Director” at Maine’s Riverview Psychiatric Hospital. All the while, the ex-Sumner Select Board member claimed she’d be vindicated of all theft allegations at trial. And she has repeatedly told her friends and supporters that other volunteer firefighters (and a town official) framed her and her husband, Bob, the now-former fire department chief, who also faces a felony theft charge.
Their tune changed by August 20, though, when “his and her” lawyers told the court that they would agree to plead guilty to the theft charges on September 4, which include allegations they used Fire Department money to purchase merchandise later sold at Foothills Firearms Safety, their gun store and triple shooting range run out of their house in the small western Maine town about 40 minutes north of Auburn.
Word on the streets of Sumner (okay, from a source close to the Sumner Select Board, who were informed by the Oxford County DA) was that the plea deal included a “deferred guilty plea” that would magically vanish after a year of good behavior by the Stewarts. Plus, sources say, the Stewarts agreed to pay $15,000 back to the Fire Department to make up for missing and waylaid funds.
However, last Wednesday, September 4, the very morning both Stewarts had agreed to plead guilty, the court granted a literal last-minute “motion to delay” by Kelly Stewart’s attorney. Here’s the exact wording of the motion that bought the director of Riverview Hospital’s Forensic Outpatient Services at least three more weeks of not being a convicted felon.
“The defendant needs time to hire a lawyer to represent her in the the admirative [sic] action, to meet with her attorney, and the employer’s human relations [sic] director, to learn how to plea the pending charge, under the plea’s agreement with the prosecutor will impact her employment status and to prosecute her case at the administrative hearing.”
I’m not an attorney, so I asked a pal of mine, an experienced criminal lawyer, for their take on the motion.
“The reason asserted by the ‘motion to continue’ means she just learned that this plea would have significant consequences on her professional licenses and her job,” my pal explained. “Deferred agreements require a guilty plea which is treated as a conviction by licensing boards. The lawyers will then seek to use the potential consequence to get a better agreement (a filing) that won't require a plea of guilty.”
My legal eagle’s assessment makes sense. Stewart’s job as “Forensic Outpatient Services Director” at Maine’s Riverview Psychiatric Hospital requires two licenses: “Clinical Professional Counselor” and “Certified Drug and Alcohol Counselor.” And, according to state law, if convicted of ANY crime, as a licensee, Stewart is required to “self-report” her conviction within ten days. Which would then, in all likelihood, trigger an administrative board review of her crime and determine if her licenses should be revoked. Additionally, Stewart, as owner of Foothills Firearms Safety, would face additional scrutiny from the ATF. She holds a Federal Firearms License (Type 07) and Class 2 SOT (more on that later) which allows the gun shop to build and sell fully-automatic weapons, plus sawed off shotguns and silencers, along with your run-of-the-mill firearms and ammo.
In other words, a high-ranking counselor and manager at the state psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane is also a literal merchant of death under criminal indictment for stealing from the volunteer fire department.
Last week, I reached out to the Department of Health and Human Services to inquire about Stewart’s employment status at the hospital plus ask some questions regarding her role and responsibilities at the psychiatric hospital’s forensic unit. A spokesperson would only confirm that that she is employed by DHHS with her annual pay currently at $101,732.80. Other than that, the spokesperson wrote, “Any criminal charges relevant to an employee's position are taken seriously and reviewed appropriately. We're unable to comment further on personnel matters.”
I followed up with more questions that would seem answerable, such as a request for the job posting for the Forensic Outpatient Services Director position. And I requested the position’s official job description and for a copy of the resume that Stewart submitted when applying for the job.
Crickets. Not even a reply saying “no comment” or explaining that the requested information wasn’t available.
I wasn’t surprised, though. I dealt with the same spokesperson in March 2023 while reporting on Hammer the Nazichud and his plans for a tiny house compound for his Blood Tribe in the woods of Penobscot County in the town of Springfield. (here. here. here. here. and here.) I had contacted DHHS, inquiring if Hammer, aka Christopher Pohlhaus, had a tattoo license. Nope, the spokes-flack told me. Well, I explained that Hammer was in Maine, giving tattoos in hotel and motel rooms and his various customers houses, in Bangor, Lincoln and elsewhere. I gave DHHS the lat and long to his compound, plus photos and videos of his freshly tattooed clients. However, according to the spox, the state couldn’t pursue any action without a street address. And then she ignored further questions.
That’s why the lack of response wasn’t surprising. After all, if DHHS won’t go after a Nazi tattoo artist inking illegally across the state, they’re not going to help a muckraker prove that an indicted ex-town official/gun dealer shouldn’t be in charge of anything at the state hospital.
Since DHHS was less than helpful, I reached out to a former employee of Riverview, a social worker in the forensic unit where Stewart was a boss, to hear what the place is like.
“Let me explain to you a little bit about Riverview. Riverview is the big state psychiatric hospital when people that are mentally ill first come. There is a regular side and there's a Forensic side. The Forensic side is the side where a person has committed a crime. Sometimes they are mentally ill when they commit the crime and sometimes a psychologist finds out that they were not mentally ill when they committed their crime. I'll just talk to you about the ‘not criminally responsible’ which is who eventually gets to the forensic outpatient team which Kelly Stewart is running. There are probably maybe 80 patients currently that are part of the forensic outpatient team. These clients have committed some horrendous crimes including murders, rapes and robberies. There's a real variety of crimes. If you Google ‘Riverview client found not criminally responsible’ or ‘Riverview NCR client to be released,’ you will be able to read info on some of the clients that are either currently in Riverview or have maybe made it out into the outpatient unit.”
I googled as my source suggested and they’re right. Some extremely violent individuals have been under Stewart’s supervision, including some of the most heinous murderers in Maine’s recent history. My source went on to explain the outpatient procedures for those found “not criminally responsible.”
“When an NCR client is first allowed to move back out into the community, they have to go through a judge for pretty much every step that they take. First, they'll go to a group home. Later on down the road, they may go to a different group home that's a little bit more relaxed. Then, sometimes, a supervised apartment and even [eventually] their own apartment. The forensic outpatient team oversees these clients. There's probably six or seven Case Managers, a psychiatrist, a psychologist, a nurse, possibly a nurse practitioner and then there's Kelly Stewart. Kelly is supposed to be providing counseling to these clients but over the years I saw that she did counseling less and less with these clients her main duty was to find out where her next meal was coming from.”
Okay, to be clear, this former employee can’t stand Stewart and had conflicts with her at work. I’d love to share some of her examples of weird and disturbing behavior by Stewart in the workplace (including some photos shared with me) but that would reveal my source’s identity. And there’s no way the state would be willing to confirm or deny my source’s allegations. If DHHS won’t tell me if Stewart is actually working in the unit, they most certainly aren’t going to give access to Stewart’s gov’t computer’s browsing history to see if my source’s allegations can be corroborated.
More importantly, as part of Stewart’s job as Forensic Outpatient Services Director (according to her own social media posts), she appears twice-a-month in court to update cases and, in some cases, to testify regarding a defendant’s progress or lack of progress. I’d say that a felony theft conviction makes it tough for Kelly Stewart to be considered a credible witness in any matter. After all, she repeatedly lied to investigators, made up conspiratorial stories and blamed others for the stuff that she and her husband allegedly did. Not a good look for a professional witness.
NOT TO MENTION SHE’S BEEN ARRESTED, INDICTED AND IS (presumably) PLEADING GUILTY TO STEALING FROM THE VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT.
I’m no psychiatrist, but it seems to me that she’s more suited for being a Riverview patient rather than working as the “Forensic Outpatient Services Director” making a 100 Large per annum.
Gotta wonder what the Stewarts were doing with all their income. I mean, she’s making the big bucks state salary, plus selling a whole bunch of guns, and renting, by-the-hour, three different shooting ranges in her backyard. And, if she’s telling the truth via social media, the range was booked most daylight hours on Saturdays and Sundays. Much to the displeasure, I know, of her neighbors.
That’s a lot of money compared to what most workin’ folk in western Maine earn. And for her to risk it all and then get caught, with her sausage fingers in the proverbial till, running a nickel-dime scam, seems absolutely nuts. Especially since it puts both her professional job and her gun shop licenses in jeopardy. Because, as my legal eagle explained, a deferred felony still requires admitting guilt to a felony and is considered a conviction, especially in the eyes of licensing boards and agencies.
Just the Facts, Ma’m.
I’ve written two previous Crash Reports, here and here, explaining parts of the story and allegations against the married couple. Today, though, I’ll tell the tale with lots of new details. Bob was fire chief, Kelly was the department’s safety officer as well as longtime Select Board member. They’re accused of buying backpacks, gloves and other gear (including pepper spray and expandable batons) with Fire Department cash and re-selling some of it on-line and on the gun shop’s shelves while also allegedly keeping some stuff for their personal hoard. There’s also chatter of missing and misappropriated funds, including purchases of personal apparel for their own use, like shirts and Converse kicks (in Kelly Stewart’s size, 6.5) and items, like pink pepper spray dispensers and many pairs of size 10 and half men’s boots, which happens to be Bob Stewart’s shoe size. All while Sumner's fire department equipment and vehicles went un-maintained and in disrepair.
Since the Stewarts apparently intend to plea, there won’t be a trial where the DA lays out the evidence, in the public courtroom, showing “how and what” behind the Stewarts’ alleged thefts. Which is frustrating, since local folk (all this drama takes place in my neighborhood, btw, in the western Maine foothills) really want to know what the Stewarts did.
Luckily, even though the DA won’t share a damn thing, we have a unique opportunity to examine the details of the case thanks to a hard-hitting municipal investigative report to use as a guidebook to the allegations. Many Sumner taxpayers are pissed, btw, about the over $60,000 spent on the investigation and want the Select Board to sue the Stewarts to recoup the cost. Especially now, since a guilty plea to the charges would presumably be very helpful in a civil lawsuit.
The trouble started back in early April 2022, during a meeting of the Sumner VFD, when the rank-and-file discussed, among other safety issues, the lack of enough functioning breathing apparatus, required by law, for the department to legally function. The fire fighters knew that the town budgeted the dept $15,000 annually for equipment and $11,000 for operations. One volunteer fire fighter was tasked to get actual budget numbers from the town clerk. And that’s when the Stewarts’ fell under suspicion. Because in the first three months of 2023, they’d already spent $5,500 of the equipment budget at the Admiral Fire and Safety store in Scarborough, for purchases that, for the most part, had little to do with firefighter safety.
First of all, according to the report and the investigator hired by the town, the Stewarts were lousy at running the department, calling their efforts “mismanaged and unprofessional.” The report also detailed specific neglected maintenance of Fire Department gear and vehicles that put the public and firefighters at risk. The Stewarts quit the department a couple weeks after the initial questions arose. Then cursory inspections deemed the gear unsafe and the new chief voluntarily shut the dept. down. Three weeks later, after satisfactory repairs were made, training programs updated and instituted and breathing apparatus replaced and repaired, the department was put back in service, much to the relief of locals.
Even though the issues were very problematic and potentially deadly, those safety matters and the ignored upkeep of the fire trucks aren’t against the law.
In terms of criminal behavior, however, the investigator showed that some gear purchased with fire department money ended up for sale in the Stewarts’ gun shop and in their online store. Also, the report showed many purchases for gear that never made it to the firefighters’ lockers, ending up instead as the Stewarts’ personal property.’
These aren’t just allegations. We have the literal receipts. Thanks to the 178-page slightly-redacted appendix to the heavily-redacted 18-page town report, the investigator clearly presents the paper trail of purchases from Admiral Fire and Safety made by both Stewarts in 2022 and 2023 that ended up for sale and in personal use. The appendix also has some interesting and specific pieces of evidence.
(I’ve included PDFs of the report and appendix below so backseat detectives and armchair accountants can examine the data and the photo-dump of the many trash bags of allegedly misappropriated F.D. gear, plus pepper spray, batons, flashlights, clothing and footwear the Stewarts returned last summer after they quit the fire department.)
First, we’ll focus on a couple specific categories of items purchased by the Stewarts. And, thanks to the volunteer firefighters who brought the department’s problems to light, we don’t have to do the math. (I did the math, tho, and it checks out.) As part of the lengthy appendix, in addition to the actual receipts, we can read an email exchange recounting the cash spent in 2022 and 2023 on expandable batons and flashlights.
In the first three months of 2023, the Stewarts, using Sumner Volunteer Fire Department monies, purchased $2,513 worth of expandable batons and sheaths for the firefighters. That’s in addition to the $1,750 worth of expandable batons and sheaths purchased in 2022. So that’s $4,263 in 15 months for crowd control and hand-to-hand combat weapons. For a volunteer fire department in rural Maine with bald tires on the trucks.
Another area of concern, to the whistle-blowers, was the $4,500 spent on super-flashlights and batteries. Thing is, the firefighters never got their hands on the supposed super-duper lights. Also, although there isn’t a total dollar figure attached to pepper spray purchases (some of which was bought outside the period of the available receipts) we can see that the Stewarts acquired lots of pepper spray on the FD’s dime. Including, as you can see below, some very cute pink pepper sprays.
Why so much pepper spray and so many batons? According to those in attendance at a meeting last year, Bob Stewart claimed that they needed to protect the firefighters from crazy people. As for the lack of vehicular upkeep and outdated safety gear, he blamed the Select Board for not giving the VFD enough cash.
According to town records and the investigative report, Kelly Stewart, as safety officer for the department and Select Board member, never uttered a word about safety complaints by the rank-and-file or raised the issue of her hubby’s claim of inadequate departmental funding or of lunatics attacking the volunteers.
Lets, for a second, forget about the crowd control gear and other purchases that the investigator wrote, “often made no rational or explicable sense.” And forget about the complaints that department vehicles were un-inspected, which is extra-weird, since Bob Stewart had been billing the department for inspections he allegedly claimed to have conducted at his automotive repair and inspection shop, which has since been converted into the gun shop and a rehearsal space for the Stewarts’ band which, as one local wag put it is, “dreadful.” Put all that aside and remember just one thing: the gloves.
If the glove fits, you must convict
Consider, people of the jury, the material evidence provided by the town investigator showing apparent criminal activity by the Stewarts. Namely, the gloves.
On 12/28/22, Kelly Stewart, using the VFD’s account, purchased 6 pairs of “Blauer Flicker Insulated Gloves” at $61.95 each from Admiral Fire and Safety. She also bought two pair of “Armorflex PFU-20” gloves that same day, for $32.95 each. Five months later, the gloves were found, by the town-hired investigator, for sale at the Stewarts' gun store. To add insult to injury, the Stewarts had the PFU-20 gloves priced at $30.00, almost three bucks less than the fire department paid for ‘em.
As for the “Blauer Flicker Insulated Glove,” in the investigator’s photo of the glove-for-sale, I couldn’t discern a price. However, thanks to the Wayback Machine on the Internet Archive, I found the actual item listed on the Foothill Firearms Website. The fire department paid $61.95, but shoppers at Foothills Firearms Safety pay only $50 when they buy it from the ex-fire chief and his wife, the current Forensic Outpatient Services Director at Riverview. What a steal of a deal!!
https://web.archive.org/web/20230929065044/https://foothillsfirearmssafety.com/product/clothing/blauer-flicker-insulated-glove/
Kelly Stewart denied to the town investigator that the gloves for sale in the store were the same ones SHE purchased at Admiral Fire and Safety.
Her explanation is not only unbelievable, but more evidence of how she lied to cover up with the intent to throw off the investigator. You can see for yourself. Her defense is laid out in the appendix. Starting on page 3, and for the next dozen pages, are lots and lots of words and a “firearms transaction record,” plus some redacted acquisitions and deposition pages from the gun store’s sales log book. Kelly Stewart’s lawyer sent all this stuff to the investigator for the town of Sumner to demonstrate something… what exactly, I’m not exactly sure.
Her defense (and the following narrative) came from three affidavits by an employee, the employee’s girlfriend (?!?) and another women, furnished by Stewart to the investigator: In early 2023, a fella who cleans out estates and basements contacted Foothills Firearms Safety and told Kelly Stewart that he’d just taken care of a job that included a bunch of “end of world tactical equipment” from the estate of a man “who had become so paranoid and mentally unstable that he took his own life, thus they came into possession of the things the family did not claim.” You can read the list of stuff purchased in the appendix, but it included bulletproof vests, ballistic helmets, gas masks, ammo mags, fireproof gear, bandages and more. Supposedly, Kelly Stewart bought all the stuff, including some “gloves.”
What does all this have to do with the accusations of the glove-stealing and other mismanagement et al?
Absolutely nothing. And the town investigator figured that out quick, noting that the written material provided by the Stewarts didn’t dispel the investigator’s claim of gloves purchased with fire department funds were being sold at the gun store. In fact, according to the heavily redacted town report, “those declarants are apparently very careful not to make such an assertion.”
To be clear, no matter what Stewart says, there’s no disputing the gloves for sale at the store were definitely bought from Admiral Fire and Safety.
There’s more evidence of apparent theft in the appendix that’s very illustrative of Kelly Stewart’s public persona. On page 58 is a screen shot of a Youtube video for Foothills Firearms Safety. Somehow, the investigator figured out that the shirt Kelly Stewart is wearing in the video while blowing up an explosive target is a “Men’s silver-tan short sleeve Class B PDU Shirt, size XL.”
And, the investigator knows, according to an invoice signed by Kelly Stewart, that on behalf of the Sumner Volunteer Fire Department, she purchased the exact same shirt for $24 at Admiral Fire and Safety about two weeks before the video (below) was posted, on July 4, 2022.
I can already hear apologists trying to excuse the shirt, the gloves, the other gloves, the size 6 Converse, the many jackets, hoodies and hats. And the pepper spray. Lots of pepper spray. And asps.
Not a big deal. Nickel-dime stuff, her friends say, not worthy of a felony.
Problem is, we only have the receipts for 2022-23. No one knows how long the couple has buying stuff using tax-dollars as their personal shopping slush fund. And, as the investigator points out on page 12 of the report, “Simply put, the complete lack of record-keeping, the lack of any procedures regarding purchases, inventory and disbursements, prevent me from making any such conclusions with regard to the ultimate disposition of those many (non-Fire) items, and whether or not they ended up for sale at [the Stewarts’ gun store.]”
Okay. So to recap: the gun store owner, wearing the shirt bought with Volunteer Fire Department monies, blowing up a Tannerite target in her backyard, also happens to be “Forensic Outpatient Services Director” for Maine’s psychiatric hospital, where she earns over $100,000 annually and is responsible for the supervision of mentally ill murderers and other krazy kriminals
Wow.
Still on the Job?
Rumors abound in my neighborhood about the Stewarts, who are about as popular as J.D. Vance at a cat show. Somebody heard that she had been placed on paid leave, just after my Aug. 20th Crash Report was published detailing her pivot from being framed by firefighters to copping to a yet-to-be-disclosed-publicly plea bargain.
There are various clues that point to her being on paid leave. Neighbors have reported more frequent weekday gunfire and noted more social media posts during workdays about improvements to the gun range. Also, Stewart posted a video last Tuesday, during work hours, highlighting the gun range’s new moving target system.
And she’s been spending a bunch of time promoting the upcoming Community Event planned for this Saturday, September 14, when the Harlem Globetrotters of Skeet Shooting are putting on a rootin-tootin loud show. Which, I’m sure, will be a hit with all the neighbors.
If she’s not under suspension (which DHHS won’t confirm) then why is she spending so much time at home? Maybe she had lots of vacation days saved up? Or maybe she was taking a mental health day? I dunno, but it’s pretty darn strange that a state employee, making 100k for supposedly counseling mentally-ill murderers, has so much time to devote to her gun shop. Especially when she’s under felony indictment for stealing from the VFD.
So, last week, I called Kelly Stewart’s office number at the Forensic Unit, which was answered by another employee, who said, “she is not working today.” The employee declined to answer when Stewart would be returning and whether she actually still had a job at the hospital. My call was then transferred, presumably to a supervisor, who would only repeat the same “she is not working today” answer.
Like I said at the start of this Crash Report, in the 13 months since her arrest, Kelly Stewart got a 10k raise, while she was under criminal indictment. Sure, she’s innocent until proven, or in her case, pleads guilty. But a high-level manager of the unit dealing with the criminally insane should’ve been transferred or put on leave for the duration of the case. Not bossing around staff and making bi-monthly court appearances on behalf of DHHS. And she def shouldn’t have gotten raise until a not-guilty verdict is delivered.
Instead, she gets 10 percent more money in her 2024 salary package. Then, in July, the State of Maine allowed Stewart to take on the extra role as “supervisor” to a longtime caseworker in her department trying get a master’s degree in social work. Plus, on behalf of Riverview, the state paid for and renewed her “certified drug and alcohol counselor” license on August 20, 2024.
So much for holding management accountable for their actions. One of my sources, the ex-employee of Riverview, says during their tenure in the Forensic Unit, they saw colleagues suspended and/or fired from work for OUI and other non-felonies.
Fun fact: on Stewart’s paperwork connected to her accreditation as a “Clinical Professional Counselor,” Liberty University is listed as the source of her master’s degree, which, a source told me, she earned on-line. Liberty University, founded by Jerry Falwell, is a Christian college with strict rules. Lucky for Stewart, she attended on-line, because there’s no way school officials would tolerate her heavy-drinking, foul-mouthed, hell-raising public persona.
Guns, Guns, Guns, Guns and more Guns
Back in March, I reported that it appeared the Stewarts shouldn’t be able to own and operated a gun shop while under indictment. There’s an ATF rule that says felony-indicted individuals whose punishment is for more than a year can’t participate in gun sales while under indictment. At the time of that report, some folks complained that the Stewarts hadn’t been convicted and should still be considered innocent.
But now it appears that they’re gonna plea. And, in all likelihood, both of them will soon be felons. And the gun shop should have to close. Because, as convicted felons, they can’t possess a gun, let alone sell ‘em and let people fire countless clips out of their backyard shooting range.
That news will make their neighbors very happy. And before gun nuts get all up in arms about the Stewarts right to shoot guns, let me say this. I live in rural Maine, in the woods, where gunfire is not uncommon. And around hunting season, the sound of gun shots almost become routine. A couple nights ago, for instance, my neighbor, over a thousand feet to the west, was sighting in whatever big gun he plans on bringing deer hunting this fall. And let me tell you, that thing was friggin’ loud. And there’s no telling when the next round would be squeezed off. And he maybe blasted through a full clip, then stopped. Slightly disruptive and startling, because of the random fire, but to be expected in my ‘hood on the edge of forests and mountains.
But that’s not what it’s like for the neighbors of Foothills Firearms Safety. As you can see in the video with Tannerite, they like to blow shit up. Every weekend, the sound of gunfire rings out most of the daylight hours. ALL WEEKEND LONG, according to Stewart on social media. I have multiple friends living in the area, some as far as two miles away, but others much closer, who describe how disruptive the constant weekend gunfire is to their otherwise amazingly bucolic neighborhood.
I can already hear the “if you don’t like the country noise, move” crowd complaining that it’s the Stewarts’ rights as God-fearing, gun-loving, armament fetishists to shoot as many damn bullets as they please. Yeah, I’m sure that’s what the Founders intended with the Second Amendment: a commercial establishment where they shoot guns all day and then, post-shooting, break out the adult beverages and bring in the gun store band.
Also, the gun shop and, more importantly, the shooting range are the new kids on the block. All the neighbors lived there for decades before the Stewarts opened up their backyard to shooters who didn’t want to disturb their own neighbors.
In addition, the rat-tat-tat of constant rando-gunfire and explosions from Stewarts’ store is bothersome to both the neighborhood and local wildlife. Deer definitely don’t hang around the rifle ranges or the abutting forest. Birds don’t like the boom-booms either. And area livestock are probably equally pissed. Or scared. All so the Stewarts can have fun and their customers can play with their guns without blowing up the tranquility of their own ‘hood.
And to be clear, this isn’t just somebody squeezing off some rounds of 9mm at a backyard target. And this isn’t anything like an afternoon shooting in a gravel pit. At Foothills Firearms and Safety, multiple customers are firing weapons simultaneously, sometimes fully-auto and sometimes with calibers bigger than you’d expect to see in civilian hands. Amazingly, as I may have mentioned earlier, the gun shop is owned by the director of the Forensic Unit at the state hospital, and is licensed to sell fully-auto weapons to customers with the cash and time to get a federal permit allowing them to access the expensive big guns. Or sawed off shotguns. Or silencers.
A quick aside: Remember how I explained that, in the appendix to the town’s investigative report, Kelly Stewart submitted a dozen pages of jibber-jabber trying to prove the gloves for sale (?!?!?) in their store weren’t the ones she bought for the fire department. Well, as part of that story about the dude selling the “end of world tactical equipment” from the estate of a man “who had become so paranoid and mentally unstable that he took his own life, thus they came into possession of the things the family did not claim,” she ended up selling the guy a gun.
And, again as proof that the gloves in the store came from the estate purchase, Kelly Stewart included redacted gun “acquisition” and “disposition” gun sales logs to the investigator, plus a copy of the “Firearms Transaction Record” for two guns sold by the Stewarts’ gun store to the dude selling the apocalyptic gear.
To be clear, THIS HAS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH ANYTHING CONNECTED TO THE GLOVES IN QUESTION. It’s very weird that this paperwork was provided in the first place, but it clearly shows a willingness by Kelly Stewart to literally MAKE SHIT UP.
And I’m gonna type this real slow for the people who still think the Stewarts are the victims here… The gloves in question were purchased, according to the receipts, before the end of the world tactical stuff even came into the shop. And again, thanks to the Wayback Machine, we can 100 percent identify the gloves for sale because the tag data matches the product data on the invoice from Admiral Fire and Safety.
Anyways, all of that just tell you that I took the gun acquisition log pages and sent them to a consultant-pal, a very smart “gun guy” who lives in the woods, in a cabin, who is an expert on armaments. This fella, an ardent Second Amendment advocate, really knows his stuff. So I asked for his assessment of gun sales at Foothills Firearms Safety for the first two months of 2023.
“Most of these guns are just run-of-the-mill “Mom and Pop” gun shop merchandise. I don't know the back story, but in these acquisition logs, a lot seem to be private sales or transfers from wholesalers. LL Cote is a New Hampshire retail shop, for instance, which doesn't make a lot of sense for one retailer to be selling to another retailer even if NH is tax free. On the first page sent, you can see in the left hand column what they paid vs what they sold them for. The Kel Tech 9mm sub9 sold for over retail value, which is a major red flag for me.”
Most striking, to my gun guy, was the purchase by Stewarts’ gun shop, of a Barrett M82A1, which retails for about $9,000. They bought the weapon on Jan. 19, 2023 from a Birmingham Alabama gun dealer. While I don’t know the current disposition of the gun, the logs submitted by Stewart to the investigator show sales up to and including May 2023. At that point, according to records, the almost $10k gun was still unsold and gathering dust in the shop’s inventory. Or is that gun for their private collection? No matter, I guess, because when the pair become convicted felons, they won’t be able sell or shoot it.
“This is not a target rife or hunting rifle, or even an "assault “rifle,” my friend explained. “This a true weapon of war. I've only seen one and ironically it was in Sumner. These use a .50 cal BMG round used for penetrating armor at very long distances. Someone either has way to much money or is doing something really bad. That’s my opinion on them.”
I’m willing to bet a hundred bucks that if you buy such a weapon from the Stewarts, or any of the automatic or a souped semi-auto, they’re gonna encourage you to blast through some ammo (for sale on location, of course) at their range in order to test out your new killer toy. Heck, they might even bring out some toys of their own in order to shoot some worms. Because, according to Kelly Stewart, “at Foothills Firearms Safety, you enter a customer and leave as a friend.”
While they may be good at making new friends, they’re lousy neighbors. Some folks living within a two miles radius of the shop have told me that on many occasions, they have heard a super-fast, rat-tat-tat coming from the shooting range. In some cases, that probably signifies a sale a “NFA” weapon, thanks to the SOT license (more on that in second), the Stewarts are allowed to manufacture and sell fully-automatic weapons, short-barreled (sawed off) shotguns and, incredibly, silencers.
First, why the fuck are silencers allowed to be sold? I don’t recall James Madison telling his fellow patriots how essential the silencer was in the defense of liberty against tyranny. As far as I can tell, silencers are good for murderers who want to shoot someone as quietly as possible, and then run away, into the night, under the cover of darkness.
Second of all, regarding the neighbors hearing the super-fast gunfire. The shop does deal in fully auto (the buyers needs a special “tax stamp” and pays $500 to the ATF) and allows fully automatic weapons to be fired on the range, but there’s another reason for the regular rapid-fire.
According to someone in the know, the Stewarts rent out the range for bachelor parties and other events, during which partygoers are allowed to shoot a modified AR-15 with what’s known as a “binary trigger.”
Again, I check in with my gun guy. What the hell is binary trigger?
And what is it doing on a gun that the Forensic Outpatient Services Director at Maine’s Riverview Psychiatric Hospital lets random paid visitors to her shooting range fire off on weekends?
“Binary triggers,” he explained, “release the hammer once on the ‘pull] and then again, once on the ‘release’ of the trigger. It’s gimmicky as fuck. And yes it will increase your rate of fire but anyone serious about shooting knows that they are just a gimmick for the nutbags who have “Punisher” skull stickers on their lifted trucks. Absolutely no practical purpose but to give chuds a hard on.”
Now as far as I know, alcohol isn’t allowed while firing on the range, but when the gun smoke settles, the Stewarts break out the adult beverages and banjo and the fiddles and electric guitars and play what they like to call “music.”
It’s no secret that Kelly Stewart likes her drink and good times. I mean, consider the after-party she held for the women’s gun lesson and “first shoot” training she held at her joint. As soon as the gals with guns passed “qualifying live shoot,” she popped the cork on the champagne and started pouring.
Heck, I’m no teetotaler, but I do find it weird that a “Drug and Alcohol Counselor” and “Clinical Professional Counselor” would have created and maintained a booze-centric public image in their quest to become an influencer in Maine’s gun-toting circles.
Going out-of-business sale?
In closing, a brief explanation of the type of gun shop licenses that the Forensic Outpatient Services Director at Maine’s Riverview Psychiatric Hospital will likely lose when she pleads guilty to the best deal her lawyer can get.
First, let’s talk about Federal Firearms License Type 07. It’s reportedly second most common gun shop license in the United States and allows the Stewarts, basically, to make guns and ammo, and buy and sell other guns and sell ammo. Unless a miracle occurs, (after all, Kelly Stewart is a graduate of Liberty University) Foothills Firearms will lose that license, for at least a year. Because remember, if the couple can stay out of trouble for 365 days, the felonies disappear.
It appears that after a year, they’d be able to re-apply for their FFL Type 07 licenses from the feds. Because being a felon doesn’t necessary preclude a person from getting one of these license
(Why? I don’t friggin’ know or understand that at all. However, I’ve read about the licenses and that’s the rule.)
Problem is, for the Stewarts, the feds might not like the fact that the pair have a pair of felonies, even if deferred, for “theft by deception” from the fire department. Meaning no more gun store, ever, for the Stewarts.
As for their second license, known as a Class 2 SOT. This is a little rarer of a “license.” (It’s actually a taxpayer classification, not a license.) And the Stewarts’ Class 2 “Special Occupational Taxpayer” (which cost a mere $500) allows them to to deal, manufacture, or import NFA /Title II firearms. These are the regulated firearms, like the silencers, “short-barreled” rifles and the full-auto.
Again, it would seem they’re gonna lose that license. And they’d have the right to re-apply, it seems, at some point. The question I have (which probably could be answered by researching case law): does it matter that Stewarts pleaded guilty to felonies while they were already licensed gun dealers?
Gun-Fetishist?
Again, I’m no shrink, but I feel comfortable diagnosing Kelly Stewart as both a weirdo and a liar. As the affidavit shows, she’s got no qualms about fabricating tales and alleged facts to get herself out of a sticky situation and cover up bad behavior. And, as the video down below shows, the Forensic Outpatient Services Director at Maine’s Riverview Psychiatric Hospital appears to have some sort of gun fetish. Which is her right, I guess, until she becomes a convicted felon. And then it’s no more gun-stroking for a year, at least.
Talk about cringe. In this video, Stewart pretends to (there’s no way to polite way to say this) “jerk off” what appears to be a .357 magnum, while saying “For some girls, size matters. Oh yeah.”
Luckily, this is a promotional video for her gun store, not part of her job dealing with the criminally-insane at the state hospital. Also, if you look at her tee-shirt, carefully, you can read the message. Here’s a screen shot.
Her tee shirt is a list of guns “Faster than dialing 911.” That’s a good message from the Forensic Outpatient Services Director at Maine’s Riverview Psychiatric Hospital
I’m looking forward to hearing what Kelly Stewart says the next time she’s in court. Especially if guilt is one of the words. Subscribe to the Crash Report to be the first to know the outcome of the State of Maine vs Kelly L. Stewart.