Allen Maurice Stiefel is facing 20 years in prison after local and state law enforcement agents raided the sewage plant he manages. Was Stiefel threatening the welfare of the Rainsville, Alabama, community with some form of sabotage?
“I was making blueberry wine,” Stiefel said in a telephone interview.
The citizens of Rainsville voted in August to end a long dry spell by legalizing the sale of alcohol. On Nov. 9, the city published a list of the first three businesses receiving alcohol licenses. Unfortunately for Stiefel, the Rainsville Waste Water Treatment Plant (WTTP) is not on the list.
Relying on an anonymous tip, law enforcement officials raided the WTTP on the afternoon of Dec. 17. DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office (DCSO) investigators and narcotics unit agents seized approximately 200 gallons of wine. They were assisted by agents from the Alabama Alcoholic Beverage Control Board (ABC), Alabama Law Enforcement Agency and State Bureau of Investigation.
DCSO officers arrested Stiefel the next day. Stiefel is charged with a misdemeanor offense of unlawful possession of an illegally manufactured alcoholic beverage. He is also accused of the Class B felony of using his official position for personal gain. This is a section of the Alabama Code best known for sending politicians caught lining their pockets to jail. Stiefel helps blueberries to ferment.
In Alabama, a Class B felony carries with it a maximum fine of $30,000 and a possible prison sentence of two to 20 years.
Stiefel, 62, spent an hour in the DeKalb County Jail before his release on a $20,000 bond. Rodger Lingerfelt, Rainsville’s mayor, announced that Stiefel would be suspended without pay during the investigation.
Rainsville, “a growing city with a winning location,” is a small northeast Alabama town with 5,000 residents, 15 churches and a killer boys basketball team. “It really is an unusual location for a national news story like this to develop,” Marla Jones, the managing editor of the Southern Torch news organization, said in a telephone interview.
Stiefel lives with his wife Cathie in the neighboring town of Fyffe. Cathie struggles to understand why she has to turn her television off to protect her family from the barrage of coverage.
“You see people that killed someone only make it on the news one time. Why is this getting so much attention? When they were cleaning up after the raid, one of the officers laughed and said, ‘this is a joke. I can’t believe they are making this kind of thing out of this,’” Cathie said in a telephone interview.
The investigation is taking a toll on the Stiefels.
“He lost his job. They just yanked everything out from under him, and we’re sitting here right before Christmas, hurting,” Cathie said.
A raid by four local and state agencies seems like a harsh response to making wine in the workplace. Is this a common occurrence in Alabama?
“Not really, but the ABC Board is very strict with their alcohol rules. Tyrannical, even,” Kimberly Bearden, president of the Alabama Winemakers and Grape Growers Association said.
There’s no question the amount of wine seized at the WTTP violates Alabama’s state regulations for home winemaking. Home winemakers are allowed to make 60 gallons a year, spread out over four quarters.
“You can only have a maximum of 15 gallons on hand at any given time,” Bearden said. ABC regulations also require the wine to be made in the winemaker’s residence.
The amount of wine seized begs the question: was Stiefel selling wine? Beyond blueberries, Stiefel declined to discuss any further details of his case. Citing the investigation’s ongoing nature, the DCSO also declined to comment.
A study recently named Rainsville as “the eighth safest town in the state of Alabama.” There’s no word yet on how rogue winemaking and the WTTP raid will affect their ranking.
-- Michael Alberty writes about wine for The Oregonian/OregonLive. He can be reached at malberty0@gmail.com. To read more of his coverage, go to oregonlive.com/wine.
December 25, 2020 at 01:00AM
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Bootleg blueberry wine triggers Alabama sewage plant raid - OregonLive
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