TO CATCH A THIEF: 'Justice is finally served. Mary got her day in court'

Michael Smith looks on as the Senior Assistant Attorney General Brandon Garod delivers his sentencing statement. (Rochester Voice photos)

DOVER - If it weren't for a couple of dogged, determined friends of the late Mary J. Kibbe, a former Milton selectwoman who amassed a small fortune over her lifetime, Michael R Smith might still be in Florida living the life of Reilly on her vast estate.
Instead, thanks in large part to Tim Richards of Milton Mills and Natalie Wensley of Rochester, he's bound for a New Hampshire State Prison for a 10-20 year sentence.
"Justice is finally served," Richards said on Tuesday moments after a handcuffed Smith, clad in a cream-colored white Hare Krishna style smock, was led from Courtroom 2 of the Strafford Superior Court in Dover by a pair of Sheriff's Deputies. "Mary finally got her day in court."

TROUBLES AFOOT: Michael Smith reaches to put on his sandals as Strafford County Sheriff's Deputies prepare to place him in handcuffs and escort him from the courtroom.

Even as Kibbe's life was ebbing away in the fall of 2017, Smith's plot to plunder her life savings gathered steam, as he used photo-shopped documents and forged signatures to meticulously dupe multiple financial institutions into giving him access to nearly a half million dollars in liquid assets.
Kibbe, then 97, allowed Smith to live at her home beginning in September of 2017, and it wasn't long before he began tending to her financial affairs as she became more frail and unable to do so.
Smith simultaneously began closing the door on allowing any outsiders into her 5,000 square foot palatial estate on Stanley Pond Drive in Rochester.
During his sentencing statement on Tuesday, Senior Assistant Attorney General Brandon Garod recounted how Wensley had demanded to be let in the house to give Kibbe a cheesecake she had made as a birthday gift.
"She saw Mary briefly before being rushed out of the house by Smith," Garod said. "She never got to give her friend the cheesecake."
As what was to be Kibbe's final birthday on Halloween night in 2017 approached, Richards demanded to see his longtime friend but was rebuffed by Smith, who soon after forged yet another document from a local attorney that threatened Richards with court action if he tried to contact her ever again.
Gregory D. Wirth, a longtime Dover attorney, testified during Smith's May trial that he represented Kibbe in 2013 in a property damage case and last spoke with her in 2017, a few months before she died.
He said he was taken by surprise when Milton Police sent him a letter that appeared to have been sent by his office threatening Richards with court action if he didn't end his efforts to speak with Kibbe in the fall of 2017.
The involvement by Milton Police eventually led to a March 2018 search warrant executed by the Attorney Generals Office at her Stanley Pond Road residence.
During the search police and detectives unearthed a treasure trove of forged documents. Garod said Smith's treachery was so unbridled that he had multiple drug addicts living in Kibbe's former home who spent hours trying to see who could forge various signatures best.
"The lengths he went to to take advantage of her," Garod commented. "He had drug addicts living at her home working on forging signatures for a place to stay. He specifically took advantage of her disability and age."
The search also yielded two new versions of her will making Smith the sole survivor" and heir.
New Hampshire state law calls for stiff prison sentencing in such cases, as elder abuse is so horrific, noted Garod, adding at a time when they can no longer care for themselves, to be victimized, is unconscionable.
After Garod's damning sentencing statement, Smith rose to his feet to deliver a half-hour long rambling diatribe during which he randomly invoked religion over and over, most times with no cogency.
"God tells us to forgive and he has forgiven me, and I ask the court to forgive me," said Smith, who fired all his public defenders, choosing to represent himself at trial and on Tuesday during sentencing.
"The Lord has been with me though this case," he said.
As he began his close, he invoked the Book of Revelation and referred to President Biden's recent reference to the potential for a nuclear Armageddon.
"There will be a nuclear war," he predicted.

He also said people all over the country are getting suspended sentences for murder and he should get one, too.
Smith then took a sudden pivot, and lamented some of his actions.
"She (Kibbe) was the centerpiece of my life," he said choking up. "I betrayed her, it kills me. I was remorseful the day I started to sin on her. I had to go to that dark place. No matter what happens here I will be persecuted to the day I die."
After both sentencing statements Strafford Superior Judge Mark E. Howard sought to gather an accurate amount of what restitution Smith should have to pay as part of his sentence.
Howard asked Smith what happened to the remainder of her assets that were unaccounted for.
Smith said he had been holding around $200,000 in a safe inside his Avon Park, Fla., home, but it was stolen while he was on a trip to Washington to attend Kibbe's funeral at Arlington Cemetery. He said when he returned home it had been stolen.
Minutes later during his sentencing, Howard turned to Smith.
"I don't believe your story about the $200,000," he said matter of factly. "I think you're lying about the $200,000.
Smith restitution order was set at $495,000.
Outside the courtroom Wensley said Mary is looking down "and very happy that she had her day in court."
"Mary always thought it was important to be fair," she added.