Pa. resident charged over gun in N.Y. is a celebrity at home

[General Geoff]

I'm surprised this hasn't been posted here yet!

A Pennsylvania man says he has become a celebrity where he lives because of his experience in July at Alexandria Bay.

And now, Erwin Spethmann of New Ringgold in eastern Pennsylvania is glad to hear he likely will get back his gun, the one that he voluntarily surrendered to troopers.

"All I want is to clear my name and get my gun back," the naturalized citizen said in his heavy German accent.

Jefferson County District Attorney Cindy F. Intschert said Thursday that her office on Tuesday sent a letter to Alexandria Town Justice Sherry L. Pennington, making a motion to vacate Mr. Spethmann's disorderly conduct conviction, refund his $100 fine and make his handgun available for return delivery.

All that remains is for Judge Pennington to grant the motion.

A letter to Mr. Spethmann, which he had not received Thursday, will tell him he must arrange to have an authorized gun dealer ship the weapon to him, Mrs. Intschert said.

"That's no problem," he said.

It was on July 22 that as he drove up Interstate 81 en route to Kingston, Ontario, to meet a friend, he remembered he had a gun in the trunk of his car. It was there, he said, because "I belong to a gun club. I target shoot, and I shoot skeet."

Knowing he could not take it into Canada, he followed signs to the state police station near Alexandria Bay.

"I thought they'd give me a receipt for it and hold it for me to pick up on my way back," he said.

"I did not know it was illegal to have the gun in New York."

The gun didn't have a firing pin, he said. "It was truly inoperable."

Three of the troopers he met that day "were nice officers, genuinely nice people," he said. But another trooper, the one who sat him in a chair and handcuffed him, Mr. Spethmann could describe only with unquotable comments.

"The other guys, they were very upset they had to do all the paperwork for this. They thought it was foolish. So I decided that this was a good time to shut up and let them do the talking."

A trooper called the district attorney's office for consultation, and was advised to charge the traveler with misdemeanor weapon possession.

But the prosecutor, one of Mrs. Intschert's assistants, also moved to reduce the charge to disorderly conduct.

After being detained for about three hours, Mr. Spethmann resumed his trip to Kingston and spent a week in Canada.

"I'm a fishing guide and I've been going to Canada for 35 years," he said.

A Watertown Daily Times story July 24 about his experience was picked up by his hometown paper, the Pottsville Republican Herald, so when he returned home, "my phone was ringing off the hook," he said. He was unaware of the publicity he had received, he said, until his first caller told him he was a celebrity.

"I got calls from gun clubs, guns rights organizations, sportsmen. And I can get a free beer anywhere I go."

Mr. Spethmann, 71, a widower and retired salesman, said he moved from Germany in 1958, "and I'm proud to be in this country."

But after being handcuffed, fingerprinted and photographed, with his records now gone to the FBI, "I could have packed up and gone back to Germany."

Expressing gratitude for what the Watertown Daily Times has done for him, he said his experience has served a purpose for people in Pennsylvania, where gun registration is not required.

"People here didn't know they can't bring guns into New York," he said.

http://www.watertowndailytimes.com/a...ebrity+at+home