After a former fire captain of the suspended Paxtang Fire Company No. 1 was charged with operating fire engines and rescue vehicles without a valid license and falsifying multiple training certifications, Paxtang Borough issued a statement on Thursday.
According to charging records, Harrisburg resident Steven Bartholomew, 55, was charged on Wednesday with seven charges of forgery, ten counts of dangerously endangering another person, and ten counts of driving without a license.
According to the affidavit, Bartholomew drove Paxtang Fire Company-owned and operated vehicles to both emergency and non-emergency incidents on at least ten separate occasions between January 21 and November 13 without a valid driver’s license.
Bartholomew’s driver’s license records were examined by Swatara Township Police investigators, but they were unable to locate a valid license in Pennsylvania or any other state.
Then, in November, officers met Bartholomew at the Paxtang Municipal facility, where the Paxtang Fire Company had been operating in violation of many warnings to leave the facility and stop emergency operations.
According to the affidavit, Bartholomew admitted to authorities that he had a current Maryland commercial driver’s license, but claimed that his wife had it. He was unable to respond when police asked him why his wife had his license, whether she could bring it to the station, or whether Bartholomew could phone her to inquire, according to the police.
According to authorities, several record searches for drivers with Maryland licenses produced no hits under Bartholomew’s name.
Borough officials have been trying to evict the Fire Company from the Paxtang Municipal Building in order to help the Borough Taxpayer because of the Fire Company’s persistently careless and unaccountable conduct, according to the borough’s release on Thursday.
Additionally, police found that Bartholomew’s June 17, 2023, application for membership in the Paxtang Fire Company used an Arkansas driver’s license number that he falsely claimed had expired in March 2024. The license in question from Arkansas, however, expired on March 22, 2020.
A provision in the membership application states that providing incorrect information or replies will result in the membership being canceled.
The fire chief of the Middletown Fire Department, which also used Bartholomew, expressed concerns about his numerous training certifications in a police interview. These concerns were then given to investigators.
On September 30, Bartholomew submitted a letter of intent to join the Paxtang Fire Company as a deputy chief, including 26 training courses and credentials.
Seven of the credentials and courses that police discovered were either discontinued, nonexistent, or did not list Bartholomew as a registered participant. These courses and certificates purported to be from the University of Maryland’s Fire and Rescue Institute.
During the examination, it was also discovered that the certifications had inconsistent dates, formatting, and font sizes and types.
Gavid Ford, the president of the Paxtang Fire Company, informed officers on December 3 that he thought Bartholomew was suitable to supervise because he had a lot of firefighting experience.
However, authorities claim that Ford used the falsified training records to confirm Bartholomew’s credentials.
According to a statement released by Paxtang Borough Council on Thursday, Fire Company President Gavin Ford is deemed unfit to serve as Fire Company President and should not be in charge of hiring captains to oversee firefighters because of his actions in approving Bartholomew as Captain.
According to authorities, Bartholomew’s bogus training background while overseeing the safety of firemen and citizens is the direct cause of the ten charges for willfully endangering another person.
According to the announcement, Paxtang Borough is requesting immediate judicial remedy in response to Steven Bartholomew’s detention in order to stop him from entering the Borough’s Municipal Building and from carrying out other fire company operations.
In August 2022, Paxtang Borough terminated its contract with Paxtang Fire Company No. 1 and engaged Swatara Township Fire and Rescue to handle borough emergencies. Firefighters from Paxtang’s volunteer department only responded outside of Paxtang after that.
After the voluntary organization declined to remove its fire chief, who had been charged with embezzling thousands of dollars from an unrelated HVAC project, Paxtang Borough Council suspended the fire department in January 2023.
Long after that suspension, in June 2024, Paxtang officials ordered the fire company members to leave the facility and threatened to jail any who continued to react to crises while posing as public servants.
Online court documents indicate that Bartholomew’s preliminary hearing is set for January. Regarding the Paxtang Fire Company, which operates out of the municipal building, a trial is planned for January 2025.
For further information about the case, please get in touch with Lt. Timothy Shatto at 717-564-2550 [email protected].
This report was provided to by staff writer Zahriah Balentine.
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