APF's Michael Hilton: not enough money to pay the rent

by: Jay Stevens

Sat Oct 31, 2009 at 09:31:13 AM MST

The California con man who failed in his bid to take over an empty Montana jail testified Friday that he is out of money, does not have the corporate backing he once claimed and even struggles to pay rent on his apartment.

Yes, Hardin officials and former Billings Gazette reporter Becky Shay are looking pretty d*mn stupid and gullible right now, but the biggest losers in all of this are the right-wing conspiracy theorists who drummed up the usual paranoia of one-world-government and military takeovers around what amounted to a minor con-man's false promises...

Links...

by: Jay Stevens

Fri Oct 09, 2009 at 10:22:56 AM MST

Just when you thought the issues around the Flathead Lake Boat Crash couldn't get any more asinine, they do.

James Conner has the details of that night's incident - apparently Barkus thought he was heading in the opposite direction than he actually was, and was pulling a u-turn at 45 mph in the dark in treacherous waters when he struck the lake bank. Dan Testa, too, has a good roundup of that night's events - two scotches and an unknown amount of red and white wine for Barkus. Just the thing for a chilly night out on the lake.

Now Barkus' lawyer is challenging the .16 BAC results - which, I know, is his right to do and probably a smart legal maneuver. But Barkus is also planning on finishing out his Senate term, as if nothing's happened here, as if he hadn't just boozed up and almost killed himself and four others on Flathead Lake.

The crash was a good sign he's got a problem, eh? I mean, for most of us, this would be a kind of, I dunno, a wake-up call, wouldn't it?

That's the way I'd see it if it were me. I'd be apologizing my *ss off to the friends and family of those I injured through my loathsome behavior, I'd cooperate with the authorities and plea bargain my way into a just punishment, resign my public office because of the deficiency of my character, and I'd check myself into a rehab clinic, ASAP. I mean, wouldn't most people feel some remorse, and want to repent and work to rehabilitate themselves?

Instead, Barkus is still out there, still a drunk, and, probably as soon as he's walking again, back behind the wheel. And he'll be passing laws over you. So much for personal responsibility.

*  *  *

As always, there's plenty of news from Hardin.

The Billings Gazette got its hands on the "memorandum of understanding" between Hardin and the APF - which it had to get by court order, apparently because it's pretty embarrassing to Hardin officials - that revealed the city did have an agreement with Hilton's company to have the APF supply Hardin with a police force for $250K. The contract toned the language down, but the memo certainly explains the Hardin Police Force decals on APF SUVs.

Naturally, with all the furor over these SUVs, Hardin is looking to start its own police force.

But the American Police Force takeover of the Hardin jail only looks dead. While Hardin put the deal with APF on hold after revelations of Michael Hilton's checkered past, a mysterious APF investor stepped forward (anonymously, of course) and noted the firm would still pursue the Hardin jail contract, only without "Captain" Michael Hilton on board.

Whee!

Hardin Jail story plagued by conspiracy theories

by: Jay Stevens

Sat Oct 03, 2009 at 11:02:11 AM MST

Shay mentioned the attorney general's request almost as a two-minute side note in a news conference that revealed that the former Billings Gazette reporter and new face of American Police Force fears for her safety.

"A lot of work I've done has been to calm down or at least try to counteract comments from people I consider to be fearmongers," Shay said. "What has happened in the interim, however, is those people's friends around the nation have been in contact with me or tried to access me. I realize I'm being pretty vague so that we don't support or incite these people. I don't want my words to be taken out of context to further inflame the tensions that I'm working under."

At that point, Shay began to cry. She asked TV media at the conference to turn their cameras off because, she said, "it's important to me that I do not appear as vulnerable as I feel."

Apparently, "Shay mentioned Internet radio personality Alex Jones." Jones is a radio talkshow host, runs a site called, "Info Wars," and - worst of both worlds - is a right-wing Truther. Jones has been whipping up his audience with the Hardin Jail story and seems to be responsible, at least in part, for a spate of weird rumors cropping up around this story. APF "was stopping motorists in Big Horn County and ticketing them for not wearing seat belts," is one mentioned in Tom Lutey's report.

Here's an example of what Jones and his callers are saying about the APF and Hardin:

DAVE: And now, a week ago it was reported to us that it was going to be an international police training facility, and later on, that they're taking prisoners there.

ALEX: Yeah! You're gonna have foreign mercenaries training, I've got...more than five newscasts, where there's, where the group is saying that. Weirdos with foreign accents going, {altering voice} "yes, we will not tell you the specifics of it, but it will be ours now! Training for anti-terror personnel, and we will be your police department! And we will hold prisoners here! And we get an additional 5,000 acres, as I did {unintelligeble} Transylvania!" And people were in denial about  this.

DAVE: The biggest pig bait, I think, is credit cards, man. They got everybody thinking they can't live without them. And, uh, Iran is the biggest bank that doesn't use interest, so you wonder why we want them out of the picture. We won't be able to make no money going through there, because they don't use the interest.

ALEX: Going back to Hardin, Montana, what are locals saying about this? And what are they saying about American Police Force, which is anything but American, driving around with its double eagle Illuminati insignia - it's not just a Serbian symbol - uh, with, saying they're the local police.

DAVE: You know, it's on an Indian reservation, and so that, that, supersedes, you know, a lot of different kind of laws, you know, so it's on the Indian reservation that Little Bighorn was fought on -

ALEX: Yeah, the Little Bighorn is 15 miles away, according to the maps I have. So it borders the reservation and the town of Hardin. Are you saying Hardin is in the reservation?

DAVE: It's in the reservation according to my map, it's got the lines here -

ALEX: Well that's why I say -

DAVE: In the northwest corner of the Indian Reservation.

ALEX: Well, that's why CNN said they're looking in, because it's like Guantanamo, in Cuba, it's kind of like a no man's land.

DAVE: It's a different nation, right? They're under, you know -

ALEX: Well, they want, what do the tribal police say? I know the sheriff of Bighorn won't talk about it.

DAVE: It's about 500 miles away from me. I'm up in the northwest corner of Montana by Canada, by Glacier National Park.

In one call, Jones brings in the Illuminati, Transylvanian mercenaries, and implicates the Crow nation in the "plot."

Obviously, the rumors can only spiral downwards. Here's a report on those rumors by TPM Muckraker's Zachary Roth:

A Hardin Montana official is trying to quell rumors that the town is "becoming a police state, having private paramilitary security forces, building gates at the town entrances, taking residents to the detention center that refuse to get swine flu shots, registering your firearms, and blocking off our main street," among other fears.

And Becky Shay, former Billings Gazette reporter and now APF spokesperson, has been receiving death threats.

Crazy. You know, the Hardin Jail story is definitely weird. And APF's involvement in this thing is unknown - they might, after all, really be a subsidiary of Blackwater, say, and saw Hardin as an ideal location to do some of their crazy private security force stuff. But it's also true Hilton could just be a con man playing some elaborate con on an easy mark. Who knows?

What I do know is that stoking up paranoid, extremist anti-government fear is a bit excessive and maybe even irresponsible. And is it me, or do I see rhetorical parallels here with the way the Teabaggers were stoked up this summer?

Bullock to investigate American Police Force

by: Jay Stevens

Fri Oct 02, 2009 at 06:16:08 AM MST

Montana Attorney General Steve Bullock has launched an investigation into the American Police Force, following news that the APF's lead figure is a convicted felon with a history of fraud.

Bullock's office has issued a civil investigative demand which orders that Hardin officials produce all documents related to their dealings with the American Police Force and its representative Michael Hilton.

American Police Force's Michael Hilton is a convicted con man

by: Jay Stevens

Thu Oct 01, 2009 at 10:17:54 AM MST

Michael Hilton pitched himself to officials in Hardin, Mont. as a military veteran turned private sector entrepreneur, a California defense contractor with extensive government contracts who promised to turn the rural city's empty jail into a cash cow....

So when Hilton came to town last week - wearing a military-style uniform and offering three Mercedes SUVs for use by local law enforcement - he was greeted with hugs by some grateful residents. The promise of more than 200 new jobs for a community struggling long before the recession hit had won them over.

But public documents and interviews with Hilton's associates and legal adversaries offer a different picture, that of a convicted felon with a number of aliases, a string of legal judgments against him, two bankruptcies and a decades-long reputation for deals gone bad.

Oops!

Hardin Jail story goes viral...again!

by: Jay Stevens

Wed Sep 30, 2009 at 21:02:04 PM MST

The first time it happened was when the city offered to put up Gitmo detainees.

This time it's the American Police Force story. First it hit TPM Muckracker, with commentary from Josh Marshall. Wonkette and Malkin picked it up. Which means this is only about 16 hours from becoming a joke on Leno and Letterman.

Gawker got into the story, and revealed this:

Muckraker Kevin Flaherty, however, discovered that APF's website shares an IP address with Defense Product Solutions, which was founded in 2004, has contracts in the Middle East and works with a man named Edward Angelino, who in turn has worked with the militarily-inclined Allied Defense Systems, Inc. and Defense Consulting Group, Inc.

Apparently some weird conspiracy theories have been making the rounds on rightwing blogs, the tastiest one was that the APF is conducting H1N1 experiments, and is using the jail for quarantine purposes. (Probably not true.)

Of course, I've been writing about the Hardin Jail since the old days...

I have to hand it to Hardin officials, they sure know how to win publicity...

More Hardin Jail fun...

by: Jay Stevens

Mon Sep 28, 2009 at 07:10:21 AM MST

There's actually not much news in this report, other than noting that Hardin's agreement with the mysterious "American Police Force" is still on, but it is chock full o' tasty oddities that I can't help noting some of them...

...like a small procession of the investors' Mercedes SUVs arriving in Hardin, emblazoned with the logo, "City of Hardin Police Department," yet Hardin has no police department...

...and the "American Police Force"...er..."leader"?...Michael Hilton, planning a helicopter tour of the area, "to look at real estate for a planned tactical military training ground" of 5,000 to 10,000 acres...

...and my favorite, which needs to be excerpted:

On Friday, American Police Force announced its first local hire: a reporter for the Billings Gazette, Becky Shay, who has covered events surrounding the jail since its construction. She will be the company's spokeswoman for $60,000 a year.

Shay said she intended to bring new transparency to the process, but declined to directly answer the first question posed to her: Where is American Police Force getting the money to operate the jail and build the training center?

"I know enough about where the money is coming from to be confident signing on with them," she said.

Gazette Editor Steve Prosinski said he was first informed about Shay's decision to leave the paper on Friday. "We weren't aware that she was talking with them about employment," he said.

How soon they learn to stonewall! Apparently it's a skill nudged into perfection more by money than practice...

Hardin Jail story turns weird...

by: Jay Stevens

Sun Sep 13, 2009 at 07:59:35 AM MST

...when Hardin officials announced this week that they had signed a deal with a California company to fill the empty jail, it was naturally a cause for celebration. Town officials talked about throwing a party to mark the occasion, their dreams of economic salvation a step closer to being realized.

But questions are emerging over the legitimacy of the company, American Police Force.

Government contract databases show no record of the company. Security industry representatives and federal officials said they had never heard of it. On its Web site, the company lists as its headquarters a building in Washington near the White House that holds "virtual offices." A spokeswoman for the building said American Police Force never completed its application to use the address.

And it's unclear where the company will get the inmates for the jail. Montana says it's not sending inmates to the jail, and neither are federal officials in the state.

Wha--? American Police Force describes itself as a "spin-off of a major security firm," and claims "to sell assault rifles and other weapons in Afghanistan on behalf of the U.S. military while providing security, investigative work and other services..."

So either it's a shadowy, private security company doing the dirty work for American intelligence agencies...or it's another big con played on an easy mark, a bunch of small-town country rubes already conned by a "Texas consortium" into building a jail no one needed.

Personally I'm hoping for the latter. I'm not a big fan of the idea that America has a secret prison network...

Rehberg hearts theHarden Jail

by: Jay Stevens

Wed May 13, 2009 at 12:55:53 PM MST

"It's a little hard to understand why the state is considering building new prisons while a brand new facility sits empty in Hardin," Rehberg said in a statement. "As a Montana taxpayer, I want my tax dollars be spent efficiently, and unless we're considering every option, there is going to be duplication and waste. Hardin wants the prisoners. Apparently Montana needs the space. Let's cut through the bureaucracy and sit down together to find a workable solution."

Yeah!

Except that...

Department of Corrections Director Mike Ferriter said in a Tuesday letter that the state does not have the large number of extra prisoners right now that Hardin would need. And he said the Hardin facility is a jail, and is not suitably built for the long-term imprisonment of inmates.

Ferriter said most of the Hardin jail consists of pods designed to hold up to two dozen inmates, a layout the state says lacks the sufficient security of prison cells for one or two inmates. He said DOC consultants found the facility would need "extensive remodeling" to meet state standards.

Feriter added that Rehberg should "focus his efforts on persuading the federal government to house some of its inmates in Hardin." Ye-ow! Take that, bia-tch! Two snaps!

So why all the fuss about the Hardin jail all of a sudden? Could it be the national press the city's gotten since it offered to house Gitmo detainees? I doubt Hardin officials intended to game the system like this, but it seems like their dumb luck has turned good...for now.

Man, this is fun to watch.

Corrections consultant proposes...a new prison?

by: Jay Stevens

Wed May 06, 2009 at 07:27:49 AM MST

And I think most reasonable people agree that our prisons need reform, that there a lot of people who shouldn't be locked away -- nonviolent drug offenders, say. That is, we want a declining prison population, right?

So...what the h*ll is this?

A consultant to the Montana Department of Corrections is recommending construction of a $371 million prison in the Billings area to handle a projected increase in the state's inmate population.

Preliminary plans call for an 1,800-bed facility - slightly larger than the Montana State Prison in Deer Lodge.

It would hold all classes of prisoners, from burglars to murderers. Both male and female inmates would be held there, although in separate parts of a complex that would cover at least 245 acres.

A precise location has not been proposed.

Smells to me like the Dept of Corrections is trying to cook up a little business for itself, doesn't it? How those bureaucrats love their expanding budgets! And how those conservative politicos love to talk tough about crime, glad to comply with the Corrections' staff call for more prison inmates!

And isn't it funny that the consultants didn't even consider using the Hardin jail? I mean...it's empty, eh? So...you know...why not use it? That is, if the prison population is expanding and all.

My guess is that Corrections officials aren't keen on packing the moving vans for Hardin...

Gazette: Drunks, not detainees, for Hardin

by: Jay Stevens

Mon Apr 27, 2009 at 10:34:11 AM MST

Both Baucus and Montana U.S. Marshal Dwight MacKay, a Bush administration appointee, listed significant security concerns about bringing Gitmo detainees to Montana:

• These detainees are considered some of the most dangerous people in the world.

• Security considerations would be monumental and would require far more than a regular detention facility could provide.

• Those accused but not yet charged of war crimes that are housed in a Montana facility would then fall within the jurisdiction of our Montana Federal District Courts, where judges already have the fifth-busiest trial docket in the nation.

• Ferrying those prisoners between the Hardin jail and U.S. District Court in Billings for hearings raises security concerns.

• The federal courthouse in Billings doesn't allow for prisoners to be completely separated from the public.

• President Barack Obama has ordered that the detainees be returned to their home countries or moved somewhere besides Gitmo by January 2010. That timeframe is much shorter than the time it will take to build a new federal courthouse in Billings.

From where I'm sitting, it looks like federal requirements for handling the detainees are getting in the way. Because, while the editorial agrees that these are some of the "most dangerous people in the world," I'm not sure if that translates to a bigger risk to the surrounding Hardin community. They are, after all, in a foreign culture, they don't speak the language, and I'm guessing they're not hip to the subtleties of state's castle doctrine laws.

Instead, given the arbitrariness of the concerns -- the prisoners must be "completely separated from the public"? -- it sounds like the detainees fall under a classification of prisoner that the Hardin jail isn't equipped to house.

No dice on detainees for Hardin Jail

by: Jay Stevens

Fri Apr 24, 2009 at 05:42:47 AM MST

Naturally city elders blamed the Governor, even rounded up some local high school kids and brought them to Helena for a protest on the steps of the state capitol. But really, it was the city elders -- sweet-talked into building the jail by a vaguely identified and apparently honey-tongued Texas consortium -- who are to blame.

In short, there's no mystery why they want to house Gitmo detainees in their facility. And to be fair, Hardin isn't the only local entity that's eyed the federal funds that would accompany the prisoners.

But it doesn't look like it's going to happen:

In a letter to Two Rivers, Sen. Max Baucus said "we're not going to bring Al-Qaeda to Big Sky Country - no way, not on my watch."

Great sound bite, Max! What we have here is low-hanging fruit, politically speaking.

There were some smart reactions in the comments from Matt's post on this, yesterday. JC correctly notes Hardin officials are trying to get the feds to foot the bill for their facility:

What better way to keep the facility afloat than by putting 4 prisoners in it, and letting the federal government foot the whole bill. Just another example of "Feds Gone Wild" from the Bush, Cheney & Co. playbook.

Yup. But to be fair to the folks in Hardin, they're kind of desperate.

And Wulfgar! wonders why it's a bad idea:

I want to know why we would be less secure with having people imprisoned here than elsewhere, the operative word being imprisoned. What is different from housing suspects of crime in a functional facility than housing convicted and known violent individuals in Deer Lodge? Why would any Senator turn down federal funds to assist employment (in several communities) during economic trials as we face now? Montana proudly, effectively and humanely hosted prisoner of war camps during World War II. Why would this be so different? Has Max bought into the rhetoric of fear, or does he distrust that his constituents will cowboy up?

He's got a point. Most of the detainees are likely seasoned combat veterans specializing in guerilla warfare...but in Afghanistan. It's not like any of these folks would suddenly spring from jail and lead a covert terrorist cell in the backwoods of Montana. And are they really more dangerous than your garden-variety American felon? I mean, seriously? How do you think they match up against our homegrown rapists, pedophiles, and murderers?

Can anyone offer an explanation of why these folks are more of a security risk?

Hardin jail still empty

by: Jay Stevens

Wed Apr 02, 2008 at 07:05:18 AM MST

Hardin leaders had promoted the privately built, 464-bed jail as the city's biggest economic development project in decades. But contracts for inmates were never lined up, and the $27 million building has sat empty since its completion last year.

Worse still, the project was funded with public bonds, but without a contract in place or even assurances from the state that it would be used. Hardin officials wanted to fill their facility with out-of-state prisoners, but Montana law forbids it.

Sarpy Sam pretty much nails it when he says, "I think the whole idea of building a jail when you had no commitment to put prisoners in it was stupid."

Hardin was swindled all right, but not by the state. Whoever came up with this idea - a vaguely identified Texas-based consortium? - screwed over Hardin, but good.

Kudos to Governor Schweitzer for going to Hardin and tackling the problem head-on, especially given the behavior of Hardin's jail boosters. (Check out Sarpy Sam's account of how Hardin city attorney, Rebecca Convery, was recruiting high schoolers into going to the Helena protest. Classy.)

What's the point of the protests anyway? What do they want from the state? It's not like we have prisoners to put in their facility. Remember, part of Hardin's ill fortune is the state's good fortune: bucking national trends by reducing our prison population.

So, sure, change the law in the legislature and let out-of-state prisoners be housed in Hardin. Sure, put Hardin at the front of the line for new prison needs. What else is there to do?