BREAKING: Montana AG investigating APF deal
From the AP:
BILLINGS, Mont. — Montana’s attorney general has launched an investigation into a California company’s plan to take over the city of Hardin’s $27 million jail, following revelations that the company’s lead figure is a convicted felon with a history of fraud.
Interestingly, Article 2, Section 33 of Montana’s state constitution reads:
Importation of armed persons. No armed person or persons or armed body of men shall be brought into this state for the preservation of the peace, or the suppression of domestic violence, except upon the application of the legislature, or of the governor when the legislature cannot be convened.
I find these posts to be rather disturbing.
When I read the first two news stories about “Captain Michael” and his “American Police Force” or “American Private Police Force” on September 10th, I called both the Montana AP and Billings Gazette to tell them I’d exposed “Hilton” as a fraud in less than two hours. I sent them 18 e-mails that afternoon, making the case.
They began timidly suggesting, by the 12th that it might indeed be wise to doubt “Hilton.” They were unable to wonder in print what the Hardin officials were thinking, to put up with this absurdity as if it were real.
I continued to send them additional info for the next two weeks.
When they hadn’t done anything substantitive to uncover the fraud by the 25th, I did two hours of intensive research. I found 24 cases of fraud, breach of contract and eviction where “Hilton” was a defendant. I asked the two papers and the two TV stations if they wanted what I’d discovered. All but one TV station responded affirmatively and I faxed the three 30 pages early on the 26th.
Still they dragged their feet. By the 29th, I and a colleague found four people who were willing to affirm that the “Hilton” from Hardin was the same “Hilton” from Orange county, California, who was a career swindler.
The problem is, the story is too full of harebrained conspriacies to die. The Serbian crest is inconsequential. The “arms merchant” stuff is inconsequential. The “mercenaries” are inconsequential. None of them have anything to do with that fact that they’re all the product of the fevered imagination of a single con man and some gullible small town “leaders.”
If he stood on a street corner with a shopping cart and said he was going to flap his arms and fly to the moon, no one would pay much attention to what he said. But because he’s put up a website comprised entirely of material stolen from other sources, because he’s convinced a local Orange county personal injury attorney who put up some money to lease cars that he’s legit, he’s treated as if he might be real. He convinced a number of town officials and businessmen that he was real because they’re way stupider than fifth graders. That only speaks to the unwillingness of people with any sense to step up to the plate, leaving those positions to be filled by idiots.
It’s irresponsible to keep all this wild speculation on your site. Sure, you can get hits to your site, but all it does is feed ignorant hysteria.
It’s taken me a year to get the true story of Hardin out… How the Music Men were able to get the dummies in Hardin to issue bonds for $27.4 million to build this useless jail. All the bunk detracts from the real story, how they and Wall Street investors got ripped off almost four years ago.