Intimidator’s ex gets probation in drug case
Judge takes her history, testimony into account
Kim Stelow was a dental assistant and mother of two with a loving family and no criminal record when she met Antonio Smith.
Today she is convicted of drug dealing and has trouble finding work.
The 37-year-old Kaukauna woman, however, isn’t headed to the Wisconsin prison system, the typical punishment in many drug-dealing cases.
Instead, Stelow on Friday got probation and a stayed prison term in a case where she pleaded guilty to selling an ounce of cocaine to an undercover agent.
Assistant District Attorney Karl Hayes said he made the probation recommendation because of Stelow’s previously clean record and the testimony she gave in Smith’s murder trial.
But Hayes said there was no deal cut for Stelow to get a probation recommendation on the drug case before she gave the testimony. She was charged after Smith’s trial.
Smith was at the center of a highprofile, brazen witness intimidation and murder case in Milwaukee County. He has been sentenced to life in prison. He has vowed to appeal.
Stelow fell hard for Smith and would become a key cog in a prison drug-dealing scheme, smuggling cocaine in her bra into the Green Bay Correctional Institution five years ago. She passed it to Smith, who sold it to other inmates.
Smith, 36, was not charged in the prison drug dealing case and went on to murder two people in Milwaukee shortly after his release. He was plotting to have a third person killed when authorities swept the victim to safety and scooped up those plotting with Smith.
On Friday, Stelow wept as she appeared before Milwaukee Circuit Judge Frederick Rosa. She was unable to speak through tears when she had the chance.
Stelow’s attorney, Patrick Wait, said she deeply regrets getting involved with Smith, with whom she had a child.
“She is remorseful,” he said. “She already has paid a steep price.”
Rosa gave Stelow credit for helping prosecutors by testifying against Smith and noted numerous letters written by friends and family supporting her. But he also said she was responsible for getting into a relationship with Smith.
“Who you keep company with, that is who you are,” Rosa said.
Stelow, who used the nickname “Pepper” and “Snow Bunny,” was connected with Smith’s Fox Valley drugdealing operation as early as 2011, Hayes said.
Once Smith was convicted for dealing and was sent to prison, he hatched a plan to continue selling cocaine, only
behind bars, with Stelow’s help.
Stelow got post office boxes, and Smith’s fellow inmates arranged for contacts on the outside to send money to them. Stelow took the money, got the drugs from Milwaukee and smuggled them into the prison. She hid it in her bra and then passed it to Smith as they kissed, according to the court documents.
Prison officials determined Smith was part of the narcotics ring and transferred him to a maximum security prison for a year as punishment, according to state corrections records. But Smith was never charged.
The case was referred to the state Department of Justice. Agency officials confirmed they reviewed Smith’s role in the drug ring but refused to release details about the case, saying doing so could jeopardize another ongoing investigation.
Stelow was never caught bringing the drugs into prison. The charge in this case stems from when Stelow sold an ounce of cocaine to an undercover agent in 2014. Police did not arrest her at that time as they continued to investigate the case.
When Smith was released from prison in early 2015, Stelow was the one who picked him up, records show.
Five months later, Smith shot and killed Eddie Powe on a Milwaukee street in a dispute centering on drug debts and jealousy over girlfriends. Trying to erase witnesses to the crime, Smith executed 17-year-old Breanna Eskridge eight days later.
And then from inside the Milwaukee County Jail, Smith arranged for another witness, John Spivey, to be bailed out, kidnapped and killed in November 2015.
Smith’s girlfriend, Shantrell “Peanut” Lyons, who like Stelow was pregnant with Smith’s child, was arrested and charged in the plot. Also charged were Smith’s nephew and a hitman Smith met while in jail.
It was an example of witness intimidation — and elimination — that is plaguing the criminal justice system in Milwaukee County, where the number of such cases has climbed by 250% in the past decade, a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel investigation found.
Smith pleaded guilty to the homicides and the plot in the middle of a long-awaited trial last year.
He is currently being held at Green Bay Correctional, the same prison where officials say he earlier was dealing drugs.