Jury Convicts Would-Be Fire Chief Of Impersonation Jury Clears Curlew-Area Man Of Theft Charge In Obtaining Firetruck From Pennsylvania

A Ferry County jury convicted a Curlew-area resident Monday of first-degree criminal impersonation for pretending to be a fire chief and tricking a Pennsylvania volunteer fire department into giving him a 100-foot hook-and-ladder truck.

But the jury of six men and six women refused to convict Dave Pace, 52, of first-degree theft of the refurbished 1961 American LaFrance aerial ladder truck. It was given to him by the Community Fire Company of Cornwall Borough, whose directors thought they were helping Curlew’s volunteer fire department, not Pace’s fictitious Kettle Valley Fire Department.

The jury had declared itself hung after three hours, but Superior Court Judge Larry Kristianson told jurors to keep deliberating. They ate dinner and reached a verdict an hour and 40 minutes later.

It appeared the jury agreed with defense attorney Alex Wirt that Cornwall officials, and the shipping company that got stuck with an unpaid bill, were at least partly responsible for failing to investigate Pace. A gift can’t be stolen, Wirt argued. But Prosecutor Steve Graham said he only recently added the theft charge, so he was “completely happy with the verdict.”

Although the standard jail term for a felony first-degree theft conviction is two to six months, Pace could get up to a year on the gross misdemeanor impersonation charge when he is sentenced April 25. Graham said he will seek restitution, including an unpaid $4,995 bill for shipping the truck to Pace.

Meanwhile, the truck will remain in Sheriff Pete Warner’s custody, and Graham said he will resist any effort to return it to Pace.

“No way it’s going back to him,” Graham said.

The Cornwall department wants the truck to go to Curlew’s real fire department, Ferry-Okanogan Fire District 12, which could trade it for something more useful.

Pace testified he was planning to incorporate the Kettle Valley Fire Department as a nonprofit organization, but hadn’t done so when he responded to the Cornwall department’s advertisement to sell the truck. He presented a spiral-bound booklet of “standard operating guidelines” he said were developed in spring 1997.

Under cross-examination, Pace acknowledged he didn’t have the document bound until he heard “rumors” he was going to be charged with fraud. Graham cited numerous references that suggested the document had been copied from a large department, but Pace insisted he was just planning for growth.

However, one of the directors Pace listed on a signature sheet dated 1997 testified that he didn’t move to Ferry County or know Pace until mid-1998.

Still, Pace insisted he was entitled to identify himself as a fire chief because, after leaving the Coast Guard as a petty officer, he was a civilian fire chief for 1-1/2 years at an Air Force base in Alaska. But Pace went well beyond that claim, according to Mike Tribioli, chief of the Cornwall Fire Company. He said Pace claimed local authorities in Curlew promoted him from fire captain to chief, and gave him the duty of “rebuilding the department.” Tribioli, who is a Hershey chocolate factory maintenance mechanic, said his department about 20 miles east of Harrisburg, would never have given the truck to “Chief Pace” if directors had known Pace didn’t represent a government-sponsored firefighting unit.