Since my case with Kelly Wheeler is finally over, and yes, my appeal did get denied, I will post my story on this site so everyone can read it and judge for themselves. Mr. Wheeler took pictures for my girlfriend and me in Oct or 2008. Mr. Wheeler assured us that he could do what we wanted because he had done them before for himself and a girlfriend at some point. We paid $96 for the sitting. Approx. a week later we went back to his studio/residence @ 235 Hillcrest Dr in Reno and looked at all the pictures. We looked at all of them, even the test shots where he was focusing, etc. After we asked how we can choose which ones we wanted. He would not let look at the pictures he took more than that one time. Meaning, we had to decide which ones we wanted right there, after seeing them once on a slideshow. He was really squirrely and child like at this point of the transaction. We convinced him, given a digital age, to print out thumb nails of all the pictures so we could pick out which ones we wanted. We did, found a few we liked, most were mediocre. We then realized he was one of those cheesy high school senior photo style photographers. More power to him, he found his niche.

We went back to Mr. Wheeler’s residence/studio and had him put the 10 we wanted on a CD. Getting him to do this was like pulling teeth. He is very archaic in his methods. I think this is his way to ensure you have to buy prints from him. He charged my credit card $106 for 10 pictures on a CD. We were so over Mr. Wheeler by this point, we just wanted to be done. We get home and look at the pictures we had just bought for $106 and they were 6 KB big. Small. Tiny. Worthless. He charged us $106 for thumb nails. I called Mr. Wheeler that day and he said “…Oh, well.” I asked for a refund, he declined. He said, I should have specified that I wanted them big enough to see. His defense is that if he makes them bigger, we could have printed them and he wouldn’t make any money. Fine, but then don’t charge someone over $100 for pictures they can’t use. Let’s just say he acted like a baby on the phone and hung up on me.

He immediately called my girlfriend and told her that he and I had gotten into a verbal fight and that she should call him or come over so he can make it right. So, we did. She called him twice and he didn’t answer. We went over to his studio/residence per his request. He didn’t answer his door and ran out the back of his house, got into his car and tried to drive away. Like a coward. He then hit me with his car. I slammed me fists into his car yelling at him for hitting me. We called the police and wrote out our reports (Mr. Wheeler did not write a report for some reason) while Mr. Wheeler all of sudden, got super tough. He was yelling at the officers, yelling at us. At one point the officer actually told him to calm down. Funny isn’t it? This is a photographer who does senior high school portraits! He wouldn’t get out of the car earlier to talk, but once the police arrived he was one hell of a “bad-ass”. The police report of this incident is amazing, if anyone wants to read it, I suggest doing it. It is public record, just as Mr. Wheeler’s arrest record (Case #08-35850 ). Anyone can get copies of both from RPD.

We took him to small claims court where he had a lawyer (remember this, because I was unaware lawyers were even allowed in small claims court). I did not. His lawyer beat the shit out of me. No joke. Tore me apart. Kelly sat there. Cowardly. Lied to the Judge about even hitting me, despite admitting it (see the police report), saying how scared he was of me and my girlfriend, and how he was trying to be a good father and leave (funny, since he is on trial now for beating his daughters) even though he left a message on my girl friend’s phone telling us to come over and fix it if needed. His lawyer did her job. She beat up someone without any legal experience at all. I am truly proud of her. She attacked the Xanax is take for anxiety (which is ironic, because the Xanax should have kept me calm), she attacked everything she could. I was literally defenseless. Of course, like Mr. Wheeler does, he sits and hides. Like a coward. He knows it and now hopefully more people do as well. The Judge ruled that my medical bills from Mr. Wheeler hitting me were my problem; his damaged car, my problem. He got lucky and had a lawyer when I did not. He won, because I w as naïve to think that morality, honesty, and integrity are still qualities people possess.

We, of course appealed. We lost. We found out after the fact about the sexual harassment, the arrests, and the child abuse Mr. Wheeler has all been guilty of. He is not a good man and everyone needs to know. His business will suffer. All these things are starting to catch up to him. My only comfort is knowing that I can write this and he will read it. I hope other people will not even take the risk of using him. I am hoping he can’t hurt his children anymore and that he won’t have any more clients to sexually harass or creep out.

Mr. Wheeler and Photoz by Kelly are awful. I have had a nightmare that almost lasted a year. I lost a lot of money dealing with one of the biggest scum bags in Reno. Don’t make the same mistakes I did. The only thing I regret is not doing my research first. All I had to do was google his name and I would have seen a bunch of horrible things about him; enough to detour me from even using him. Even the simple task of asking around would have been so useful. After the original incident, when I would tell people about it the minute I said the name “Kelly Wheeler”, a look would always come over their faces. It was truly amazing.

This is not slander. Check sites like Reno Justice Court for a confirmation of all court, trials, and other records pertaining to Mr. Wheeler. Go to the Reno Police Dept and obtain a copy of Mr. Wheeler’s arrest record and the police report I refer to in my statement.

Feel free to email me with any questions:
[email protected]

Travis Stewart