Company run by ex-con drops Montana jail plan

[951-Riverside]

Source: The Associated Press

An obscure California company run by an ex-convict with a history of fraud convictions is dropping its effort to take over a Montana jail — days after state officials launched an investigation and several key participants backed away from the proposal.

American Police Force spokeswoman Becky Shay said Friday the deal with Hardin had "gone sour" after media revelations about the past of company founder Michael Hilton, who has a history of fraud and theft going back at least two decades.

Hilton signed a contract in September to take over the jail and run local law enforcement, but it was never ratified.

Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ifOx0LPKy5B_0KAyPHyNTEqdQz6QD9B7PJ980

[FiveGoodMen]

1. Sounds like a little exposure did a world of good in this case.

[annabanana]

2. We have to keep an eye on these fucks... You KNOW they'll

pop up somewhere else where they can do real harm.

[FiveGoodMen]

4. No doubt about it

[tanyev]

3. Still positive you made a great career choice, Ms. Shay?

[EFerrari]

6. Wasn't she supposed to be some kind of journalist?

And she never checked behind this guy? Man.

[badgervan]

7. Now What....

... does she do? Sometimes grabbing the easy bucks ain't the smartest career move.

[Dogtown]

5. "...after media revelations..."

You'd think they'd run a background check on the scamp before contracting him for law enforcement duties.

Just another reason *NOT* to privatize.

[onethatcares]

8. no, in actuality,

you can find out more about your carpenter than you can about your policeman, doctor, lawyer, mayor and anybody else.

Peace

[Dogtown]

14. Perhaps you're right about private citizens,

but this was a government contracting agency, and they have access to criminal records. had they bothered to check, rather than awarding based on expectations of profit, they would have unmasked this scoundrel before the press had to do the job for them.

"Privatization" is an open invitation to corruption, and that circumstance is almost always exploited.

[sudopod]

9. PWND

[Historic NY]

10. remember the face

[Stephanie]

12. So creepy

Fake badge, fake patch, fake ID. WTF did he think he was going to do with his own jail? Arrest fake criminals and put them in it?

[Stephanie]

11. Hardin, MT, population 3,384

Here's the mayor:

http://www.hardinmt.com/pages/mayor.htm

Happy they got out of it in the nick of time.

[Stephanie]

13. Hah! Message from Hardin MT

http://www.tworiversauthority.org/

We welcome anyone to visit our town!
There are no commandos in the streets.
There is no fence or gate being built around Hardin. People are free to come and go as they please. APF is not running our town or our police force.

[havocmom]

15. Stephanie, some of the folks in Hardin (and elsewhere) will try to blame Governor Schweitzer

so I am bookmarking this page of the Billings Gazette that has a basic chronology of the prison boondoggle

http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/article_4cd7d5c0-b50f-11de-9dbe-001cc4c002e0.html

They try to blame it on the Gov who wasn't even in office when they built the white elephant prison:

"There was finally a contractor who was willing to come in and try to open that detention facility. There was finally a contractor who wasn't afraid of (Gov.) Brian Schweitzer's administration and the state of Montana's attempts, backhanded or straightforward, to restrict opening up that facility," Shay said. "And that opportunity has now been lost. I truly believe another will step up and the facility and Hardin will have its chance."

The prison was built, bonds sold, by a Texas based consortium. No work done to make sure the prison would get utilized before bonds sold and construction began. Gee, that was probably the first con job pulled on these people who just wanted to have jobs to offer people coming of working age in the community.

Oh, and there was supposed to be a job fair for the prison next week, but that got canceled too of course.

Schweitzer lays it out simply at the link. He actually tried to get those prison beds filled to help mitigate the damage to the community now trying to blame him for their problems. The people in Hardin got conned several times. Hilton was just the latest huckster. The current governor was not the problem, he tried to make the best of a bad situation. He tried to promote their project, but even local law enforcement here in Montana said the facility was inadequate.

Two Rivers began working on the jail before he was elected, Schweitzer said. Even then, Hardin officials had no deal with Gov. Judy Martz that Montana would house state inmates. After the jail was completed, state and federal authorities all declined to use the space. Two Rivers also floated the idea of housing terrorism suspects now being held by the U.S. military at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Schweitzer sent letters to correctional officials in Wyoming, Colorado and Washington, inviting them to tour the facility and consider housing overflow inmates at Two Rivers. All declined, with some, including neighboring Wyoming and other Montana sheriffs, saying the facility's design could not safely house inmates. Later, when Schweitzer tried to interest the Bureau of Indian affairs in the facility, Two Rivers officials rebuffed those efforts, he said.

Schweitzer said he thought the Texas-based consortium that approached Hardin, built the jail and sold the bonds to pay for it, may also have been hustling a scam.

Without checking the demographics, am guessing the majority of that area votes GOP. The way they are trying to blame a very good DEM governor for troubles that germinated well before he took office is about par for the course for republicans and wingers I know in the general area. The part about GITMO terrorist suspects would be fine, but no thanks to any Native American prisoners speaks volumes about local attitudes. Thinkin they are not Missoula liberals.

We need to do something about the narrow scope of radio broadcasts here in the hinterlands of the Big Sky. All they get are hate pundits and raving fundy programing. Doesn't allow for a broad understanding of realities.

[havocmom]

16. Speaking of the Texas connection and con men, read about former Governor Marc Racicot's tenure

Marc Racicot left Montana in a mess, leaving another GOP patsy to take the blame for most of it, while going on to do big things (well paid things most likely) for bush. AH, there's Texas money connections again.

Link to Counter Punch page written when Racicot's patsy, Martz, was still governor. Oh, it all becomes crystal clear that the Hilton scam was not the first time the folks of Hardin (and much of Montana) got conned and financially swindled. http://www.counterpunch.org/stclair08092003.html

...

Racicot served as governor of Montana from 1994 through 2000, where he slashed taxes, carried water for big timber, deregulated the state's electric utilities and moaned ceaselessly about the oppressive hand of the federal government. Prior to that Racicot served two terms as attorney general for the Big Sky state.

...

These days Montana's once robust economy is in ruins. The current governor*, Racicot's bumbling protégé Judy Martz, gets most the blame for the crisis and lumbers along with an approval rating of 23 percent. But Racicot's savage economic policies laid the foundations for the wreck that now plagues the state: record deficits, bankrupt schools and a senescent economy.

While Racicot slashed services and taxes, he also funneled what little money remained in the Montana treasury into costly projects that benefited political donors. For example, Racicot spent tens of millions of dollars on a new software system for the state government that was supposed to minutely track agency budgets and expenditures. Nearly a decade and $50 million later, the system still doesn't function and the workings of state's budget (now deep in the red) remains as opaque as the rituals of Eleusis.

Although the state of Montana was veering toward bankruptcy, Racicot sank $100 million into the construction of new prisons, which were built by political donors. The problem was that Montana was one of the few states with an overcapacity of prison beds. The prisons went up anyway and despite a slate of harsh new laws passed under Racicot and Martz to lock up more Montanans the new prisons remain underbooked. Now, Montana is desperately looking to rent out its empty cells to other states.

...

*remember, this was written before Schweitzer became governor

Do read the one about the power company that worked well, employed Montanans and was destroyed by greed and Marc Racicot's fat cat serving ways: http://www.counterpunch.org/corr01122006.html


But, hell, Marc is in a warmer place (sadly, not Hell, just yet) living comfy from his servitude to bush connected donors and GOP fat cat patrons. RNC head, campaign head, lobbyist jobs (that translates to: thank you for all the money you made for us, here's a pay-stub to keep the IRS off you back, no bribes involved, right? heh heh heh.)

GOP suckers here can't blame it on Clinton, or Obama, so they are pointing fingers at Schweitzer. What would they do without good DEM leaders to blame for all their problems? Gee, they might have to face reality.

Nah. Never happen

[dixiegrrrrl]

17. Good info.

Emphasizes again that Bush and Co. just viewed the entire country as a profit making enterprise.

[havocmom]

18. Yep, fuck the people. Take the money and run

for higher office so you can take MORE money.

Pisses me off that so many people vote for scum like that then blame the DEMS who come after the hen house has been raided and try to restore a productive flock.