By Patti Weaver
STILLWATER — A 33-year-old Ripley man, who pleaded guilty to a six-count charge last month, has been sentenced, as part of a plea agreement with the prosecution, to 10 years in prison followed by 20 years of probation for trafficking the drugs LSD and MCMA online through a social media application called Telegram.
Steven Wyn Stewart was given concurrent lesser sentences for possessing with intent to distribute the drugs, DMT and/or Psilocybin, oxycodone, methadone, morphine, lisdexamfetamine, dextroamphetamine and/or methylphenidate, marijuana and/or marijuana products, buprenorphine, ketamine and/or codeine, alprazolam, diazepam and clonazepam; having a gun during the commission of a felony and possessing drug paraphernalia.
After being released from prison to probation, Stewart must make arrangements to pay $5,650 in fines, provide a DNA sample, undergo random drug tests and provide proof of employment, under the judge’s order. Stewart was given credit for the time he has been in the Payne County Jail since his arrest on Nov. 19, 2024.
Payne County Sheriff’s Investigator Brandon Myers wrote in an affidavit that on Sept. 3, 2024, he joined a joint investigation by the Pennsylvania State Police and the United States Postal Inspection Service based in Harrisburg, Pa. into Stewart’s online drug trafficking operations.
“We learned that Steven is using a social media application called Telegram to facilitate the sale and distribution of drugs. He is using the United States Postal Service to mail the drugs to his customers. We learned that he had a marketplace named Steve’s Shop on his Telegram, where he listed the drugs that he had in stock with prices. We learned that Steven Stewart’s residence was a camper trailer,” at an RV park in rural Ripley, the sheriff’s investigator wrote in his affidavit.
In September and October of 2024, Pennsylvania state troopers in an undercover capacity purchased various drugs that Stewart shipped to Pennsylvania via the United States Parcel Service USPS, where the U.S. Postal Inspectors intercepted them, the affidavit said.
In November of 2024, after Pennsylvania state troopers in an undercover capacity ordered more drugs, the Payne County sheriff’s investigator obtained a search warrant for Stewart’s residence, where “we seized a cornucopia of illegal drugs,” his affidavit said.
“Through the investigation, we learned that the United States Border Patrol had intercepted international packages addressed to Steven Stewart. The intercepted packages controlled dangerous substances and were sent to Pennsylvania’s United States Postal Inspectors,” the sheriff’s investigator wrote in his affidavit.
Stewart’s sentences from Payne County were ordered to run concurrently with his sentences from Pennsylvania, which were not listed in Payne County court records.
