Lead investigator says search warrant yielded motherlode of evidence

DISORDER IN THE COURT: Defendant Michael Smith shows a picture to the jury that he said shows he's being held against his will during a search warrant moments before the judge tells him he can't tell them what it shows. (Rochester Voice photos)

DOVER - Barefoot and clad in a pink smock reminiscent of Hare Krishna garb, the former Milton DPW chief accused of attempting to bilk millions of dollars from a Rochester woman's estate continued his crabbed defense on Wednesday at Strafford Superior Court.

Michael R. Smith, 59, who now lives in Avon Park, Fla., is facing up to 15 years apiece on five theft counts if convicted of trying to steal some two million dollars from Mary G. Kibbe, a former Milton selectperson who died in November 2017, just months after Smith moved into her palatial, 5,000 square foot Rochester home at 10 Stanley Pond Drive in Rochester.

BAREFOOT BARRISTER: Michael Smith, right, who is representing himself at trial, with his standby public defender David Bettancourt, left. In background is Superior Court Judge Mark E. Howard.

The trial began on Monday and is expected to wrap up with closing arguments on Tuesday.

Most of Wednesday was spent interviewing a chief investigator from the Attorney Generals Office who spent more than two hours on the stand under questioning from Senior Assistant Attorney General Brandon Garod, the lead prosecutor for the state.

Under questioning from Garod, Calice Ducey described at great length the reams of what appeared to be forged and doctored documents that made Smith sole heir to Kibbe's fortune that were found all over the property at Smith's Stanley Pond Drive home when they arrived with a search warrant on March 16, 2018.

Ducey said when she arrived at the house that morning, Smith met her at the front door and looked over the search warrant that listed articles they were authorized to seize.

She said Smith agreed to allow them in but said he didn't want them to take one of his computers.

"He was concerned about us taking his laptop and I said we were trying to find out where the documents came from," Ducey told Garod. "And he said, 'I can tell you how they were made.'"

Several Staples bags found in the back of a pickup truck that were filled with what are alleged to be dozens of phony documents prosecutors say were made by Michael Smith in furtherance of his enterprise to bilk millions of dollars from a Rochester woman's estate.

She testified that Smith was compliant and quietly sat at the kitchen table while some 10 or 15 investigators went through the house and garage room by room tagging any admissible seizure items with sticky notes.

Ducey also testified when she noticed what appeared to be a surveillance system in the front living room, she told Smith she would have to shut it down, because if it were streaming it might enable someone to pick up what they were doing or expose Rochester detectives who might do undercover work.

She testified the first big find came in the garage where they found a Chevrolet Silverado with dozens of what appeared to be forged or doctored Powers of Attorney, Health Powers of Attorney and wills in Staples bags that placed Smith as sole heir and in control of her affairs.

Ducey testified the forms were all in various forms of completion: some were notarized but not witnessed, some were witnessed but not notarized, some had watermarks but no witnesses or notary stamp.

More of the same was found in several other rooms including the living room, where they also found what appeared to be a document that appeared to memorialized an Oct 8, 2017, meeting at Kibbe's Rochester home, about a month before she died.

Ducey read the narrative aloud for the court: "Kibbe wanted to make Michael was her sole heir, that she wanted to take care of him, that he was like a son, and she wanted him to live in her house and to make him general and health power of attorney and that she needed to make sure he is taken care of when I'm not around. He's been with me for 30 years."

But the person who wrote the narrative was never identified on the paper or elsewhere, she said.

After Garod's questioning was finished a barefooted Smith strode to the podium for cross-examination, first asking Ducey, "Have you ever lied?"

"No," she replied.

"Have you ever destroyed evidence?"

"No."

"How did you get involved?"

"Milton Police made a referral to us because they were afraid you were exploiting M.K. (Mary Kibbe)"

Smith later segued to the day of the search warrant seeking to rebut Ducey's assertion that she had said he was free to leave the premises.

During earlier questioning from Garod she had said Smith could leave or stay, but he could not interfere or roam the house while it was being searched.

Smith then asked the prosecutor and Judge Mark E. Howard if he could allow the jury to view a picture he said showed two investigators surrounding him as he sat at the kitchen table.

When he was allowed to show the jury the picture he strode down the jury box, saying, "Does this look ..."

Howard quickly cut him off saying he couldn't tell the jury what the picture showed; he could only let the jury view it.

According to opening arguments by Garod, Kibbe had shared with several people that she wanted to leave her entire $2 million estate to the United States Naval Academy. He also said that Smith had spent about $500,000 of her assets. On Wednesday Garod said the rest had ended up where she'd wanted it to go.

A source familiar with both Kibbe and Smith, who lived in Milton Mills, told The Rochester Voice shortly after Smith's indictment in 2018 that the two were very close despite their vast age difference.
Smith's Facebook page at the time of the indictments showed he was a former Milton Water commissioner and Sewer commissioner, a member of the Zoning Board and Planning Board and on the Strafford Regional Planning Commission.
It appears that Kibbe served at least two terms as selectman before losing in a disputed 1997 election in which a write-in candidate running against her distributed stickers outside the polls to be placed on town ballots.
Kibbe later moved to Stanleys Pond Drive in Rochester, where she lived out the rest of her life until her death on Nov. 11, 2017.
Smith's theft case history is a full 16-pages, with numerous motions made by Smith to dismiss the case on evidence issues such as "fruit from a poisoned tree," professional conduct and corruption and conspiracy in concert
A jury trial was scheduled for July 2019, but never materialized.