Western Pennsylvania's trusted news source
Judge: Former Charleroi woman charged in Capitol riot can't possess gun to protect her livestock | TribLIVE.com
Allegheny

Judge: Former Charleroi woman charged in Capitol riot can't possess gun to protect her livestock

Paula Reed Ward
4473096_web1_PTR-capitolarrest2-0311221
Courtesy of FBI
Dale Shalvey was charged by the FBI with entering the Capitol Building and going on the Senate floor during the Jan. 6 insurrection.

A federal judge on Friday denied the request of a former Charleroi woman charged in the Capitol riot to be allowed to possess a firearm to protect her livestock pending trial.

Tara Stottlemyer, 36, is accused of obstructing official proceedings, disorderly conduct in the Capitol building, entering a restricted building and entering the floor of Congress. She was charged by indictment in July.

Her husband, Dale Shalvey, 37, had been charged by criminal complaint with similar counts in February and has since been indicted three times, with additional charges added. He also is accused of assaulting an officer at the Capitol on Jan. 6 and stealing a letter written by U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney to Vice President Mike Pence.

Shalvey and Stottlemyer have moved to North Carolina, where they earn their livelihoods on a working farm.

In a motion to modify her conditions of release filed Wednesday, Stottlemyer said that not being able to have a firearm impedes her ability to protect their livestock.

Prohibition on firearm possession is a standard condition of pre-trial release.

Stottlemyer and her husband raise chickens, ducks and turkeys on a regenerative farm, the motion said. The birds are raised in a pasture but are moved every few days so that their excrement doesn’t damage the soil.

To move them, the couple uses portable shade structures and a portable electric fence. While the fence works to keep some predators out, the motion said, it is not 100% effective.

“When predators get hungry (especially going into winter), they are willing to endure more pain to catch their prey,” the filing said. “Once a predator knows where an easy meal is, it will not stop until their prey are gone, or the predator is gone. Raccoons especially will kill for fun, so instead of just coming out to one dead bird that a raccoon killed and ate, it is possible to come out to more than 20 dead chickens that were killed indiscriminately, and left to rot.”

More than once, the motion said, the couple has lost more than 20 birds and killing the raccoons is the only thing that solved the problem.

Further, they noted that there are packs of coyotes in the area.

“This is both emotionally and financially devastating for Ms. Stottlemyer and her husband,” the motion said. “They raise these birds from the time they are two days old and take their responsibility to take care of the birds very seriously.”

Further, the filing said, the financial impact can be severe. The couple earns $20 per chicken and $120 per turkey.

“In just one week, they could lose over $3,000 in revenue.”

However, the prosecution objected to the request.

During a hearing on the issue via video conference Friday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Anthony Franks said that while Stottlemyer is not charged with a crime of violence, Shalvey is. Not only that, Franks said, but Shalvey also lied to investigators.

Franks also told the judge that pre-trial services objects to Stottlemyer possessing a firearm and called it a potential safety concern for them.

Defense attorney Myra Cause suggested that the weapon could be kept in a gun safe that only Stottlemyer and pre-trial services could access.

“This is someone who has no history of violence,” Cause said.

She also noted that Shalvey is not accused of using a firearm in his alleged crimes.

“There’s no reason to believe the firearm would be used inappropriately,” she said during Friday’s hearing.

But Kelly was apprehensive.

He said that he thought Stottlemyer’s stated reasons for needing a firearm were more speculative about what could happen in the future versus any financial harm she has already suffered.

Kelly denied the motion for now, asking that Stottlemyer show that she has tried other methods and exhausted those possibilities before making the request again.

Paula Reed Ward is a TribLive reporter covering federal and Allegheny County courts. She joined the Trib in 2019 after spending nearly 17 years at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, where she was part of a Pulitzer Prize-winning team. She is the author of “Death by Cyanide.” She can be reached at pward@triblive.com.

Remove the ads from your TribLIVE reading experience but still support the journalists who create the content with TribLIVE Ad-Free.

Get Ad-Free >

Categories: Allegheny | Local | Regional
";