By: Patti Weaver
(Stillwater, Okla.) — An ex-convict from Yale has been charged with cutting a chain link fence and entering the city of Cushing’s service yard at 600 W. Cherry where rolls of copper were reported stolen on Oct. 19, Oct. 20 and Oct. 21.
During an interview on Oct. 21, Brian Lynn Stewart, 38, said, “I did not do all three,” when asked if he was involved with the three separate thefts,” Cushing Police Officer Jerrod Livergood alleged in an affidavit.
Stewart was arrested on Oct. 21 and subsequently jailed on $20,000 bail pending a court appearance today on a second-degree burglary charge, court records show.
Due to his criminal record of Payne County convictions for domestic violence by strangulation and also feloniously pointing a firearm in 2010, aggravated assault and battery in 2011, and possessing stolen property in Cushing in 2017 and 2018, Stewart — who got out of prison in September of 2019 after serving about 11 months — could be given as much as a life sentence if convicted of burglary.
“When asked exactly which one (theft) he was involved in, Stewart said that he didn’t want to talk about it because last time he admitted to stuff he made it worse,” the Cushing officer alleged in his affidavit.
“Stewart spoke about him having a hard time with his meth use and trying to provide for his (relative). Stewart said that he isn’t a bad person, but everything he does it to provide for her,” the affidavit alleged.
During a search of a truck near a camper on W. Broadway in Cushing, the officer found a receipt from a salvage yard “where Brian Stewart sold 37 pounds of #1 copper for $86.95 on 10-19-2020,” the affidavit alleged.
A salvage yard employee said “Brian Stewart sold some #1 copper and said that he climbs electric poles and strips them of wire to get the wire to sell,” the affidavit alleged.
When the Cushing Electric Department superintendent went to the scrap yard, he “positively identified the roll of copper that Stewart sold to the scrap yard as the copper that was stolen from the city of Cushing,” the affidavit alleged.
***
