"But,lo! From forth a copse that neighbors by, a breeding jennet, lusty, young, and proud, Adonis' trampling courser doth espy, And forth she rushes snorts and neighs aloud: The strong-neck'd steed, being tied to a tree, breaketh his rein, and to her straight goes he."
— William Shakespeare
HARLEM-Feelings are still raw-edged at the Richland County Courthouse in Sidney. The knock-down drag-out slugfest between Shana Carter and Corinne Herdt, a few short months back, brought to a head malodorous hard-feelings between the two women. Feelings that have not softened with the change of seasons.
Accounts of the struggle differ from one floor to the next in the Courthouse.
Arlene Riggs, the long time Clerk of Court, doesn't want to talk about anything. Neither do the secretaries in the Treasurer's office, a floor down from the third floor anteroom where the fight started. But some people do tell what happened that day, after they are assured their identities will not be disclosed. The sources want the entire world to know.
Sidney is the kind of town where people who talk too much run into problems.
Fights between women are usually not much. This one was different. Shana Carter was wildly angry that day when she confronted her perceived rival, Corinne Herdt, just outside the office Corinne shared with District Judge Richard Phillips. No one knows who started it; but the ladies all-of-a-sudden began to punch, scratch, screech, bite, and pull out clumps of hair. Both women were sobbing by the time they were separated. Corinne's blouse and bra were torn off. Shana had deep scratches on her arm and a bloody nose.
The confrontation occurred after Shana Carter discovered her husband, Phillip Carter, was still carrying on a sexual affair with Corinne Herdt. One week-end months earlier Shana had caught the two lovers nude, at the Carter's lake cabin, in the Tobacco Gardens resort area in North Dakota. That embarrassing incident had put a momentous strain on the Carter marriage - but the imbroglio also brought optimism and promises from husband Phillip that he would remain faithful to Shana and their children. Still, when the two lovers were caught again - au flagrant, it was more than Shana Carter would tolerate.
Despite the fisticuffs, neither of the women was arrested or prosecuted. A key reason was that Shana Carter was the wife of Phillip Carter, one of the local prosecutors. Another reason was the complications for District Judge Phillips. Corinne Herdt, served the Judge both as Court Reporter and personal secretary. A person didn't have to be an Oliver Wendell Holmes to see the potential for conflicts and bias when prosecutor Carter practiced in Judge Phillips' court. A married man who could openly, repeatedly and publicly woo the judge's attractive well-built secretary obviously enjoyed a special status in the courtroom.
It was a status that Phil Carter had come to expect and demand. It was a status that his modest Sidney lawyer colleagues; like Jacques Best, or Bob Savage, or Peter Maltese, or Katherine Irogoin, couldn't openly challenge. Phil Carter, the Sidney City attorney, was above the corruption allegations which had swirled around him beginning in 1986.
Beginning a little over a decade ago, Sidney was the scene of a celebrated feud between another Sidney attorney and Judge H.R. Obert. The battle lasted for almost five years until attorney Halvorson was sanctioned by the Montana Supreme Court on a variety of wrongs, after Halvorson stuck a revolver to the head of a Sidney businessman he was trying to collect money from.
Judge Obert was concerned, for good reason, that attorney Halvorson was "mentally ill". A report prepared by an investigator for the Judicial Standards Commission speculated that the troubled attorney was indeed mentally ill. Long-time area residents knew also that other Halvorson family members had a history of personality problems and treatment. Judge Obert decided to get involved in the matter after Halvorson began to attack him personally as well.
There were tons of allegations brought back and forth in the battles between Judge Obert and the young attorney. The fighting was accompanied by Judge Obert being forced to file personal bankruptcy. By 1990 after a hearing was held for attorney Halvorson before the Commission on Practice of the State Bar, Phillip Carter and Sidney Police Detective David Schettine had become involved in the proceedings as well. Carter and Schettine testified that Halvorson was saying that they were involved in a "drug conspiracy" of some sort.
Witness Jeff Curry came forward to testify that attorney T.R. Halvorson had solicited him (and a friend) to use a parabolic microphone from a porch across the street from Carter's office to obtain conversations between Detective Schettine and prosecutor Carter. When Phillip Carter found out about this he was outraged. Carter informed FBI agent Scott Cruise about the electronic surveillance report as soon as he cleared it with then Montana Attorney General, Marc Racicot. Consequently, investigations that had creeped about for years sped ahead rapidly. Strangely FBI agent Cruise and Marc Racicot found that the surveillance violations were of the highest priority. Quick as a cat possible witnesses were interviewed in the state prison in Deer Lodge. All stops were pulled to see that the surveillance allegations were checked into.
Formal charges were filed by the Commission on Practice against T.R.Halvorson soon after the surveillance allegations surfaced. Phillip Carter assisted John O'Conner, was the prosecutor, at the hearing. Circle attorney Arnie Hove testified Halvorson told him, in the presence of others, that Phillip Carter and Schettine were involved in drug trafficking. Carter and Detective Schettine also gave testimony along those same lines. The gist of the hearing was that attorney Halvorson was ill.
The Commission found Halvorson was guilty of the handgun assault, and several client related frauds. Accordingly, Halvorson was suspended from practicing law for 90 days. Suspiciously, though, the alleged electronic surveillance violations were dropped prior to the hearing. This unusual tactic assured the prosecutor, and his assistant, that the drug dealing allegations made by Halvorson would not surface in open court. The promising career of eccentric attorney T.R. Halvorson was finished. Today a decade later, Halvorson has a meager law practice as a public defender in Sidney.
The drug allegations against Phillip Carter and David Schettine rang loud and strange in Sidney. Even among the lawyers, (who for the most part detested Halvorson), the drug allegations seemed to have some substance. The rumors would not go away.
Then in the spring of 1991 Richard Hobbs, a Sidney City Councilman, met with three men: Lonnie Bouchee, Monte Lorenz, and Jeff Whitehead, who again provided information that Detective Schettine and Phillip Carter were involved in drug dealings. Soon another man surfaced, Terry Brownell, (who agreed to meet with several City Councilmen and Mayor Harold Mercer), and who told the Sidney officials that he (Brownell) had hauled a load of drugs in a vehicle for a Poplar man, Andy Hollum. During the enterprise Hollum advised Brownell that the drug shipment was destined for attorney Phillip Carter.
Soon City Councilman Richard Hobbs had obtained dozens of witness statements implicating both Phillip Carter and David Schettine in drug abuse or drug trafficking while both men were also involved in law enforcement. Hobbs as City Councilman was put into contact with the Montana Criminal Investigation Bureau (MCIB)and the entire matter was turned over to Attorney General Marc Racicot.
As the news about the Hobbs investigation spread throughout eastern Montana many more witnesses came forward. Clinton and Rena Mullen claimed that Phillip Carter had approached them to haul drugs from Canada in their trucking operation; Gail Stroh gave sworn testimony that she had seen Carter and Schettine using cocaine at a party at Carter's home; Ron Welnel claimed that he had been with a person who had delivered cocaine to Carter at his home; area beet farmers told of purchasing drugs from Carter and David Schettine; a County Commissioner gave information about frequent suspicious flights into the Lambert area west of Sidney, flown by a pilot named "Williams" who worked with Carter; other information from still more witnesses indicated that several Sidney cattle companies, were also involved in large scale cocaine operations and that prosecutor Carter and David Schettine were involved as "protection" for the enterprises. More than 70 witnesses eventually came forward implicating the two men in drug related corruption. Among those reports were claims that airplanes were flying large quantities of drugs onto airstrips in the Sidney area.
In co-ordinating the investigation Marc Racicot used MCIB investigator, Dan Skuletich. Skuletich did not interview many of the Sidney witnesses, and did not acknowledge many of the witness statements to him implicating David Schettine and Phillip Carter. Investigator Skuletich also ignored reports that witnesses were being intimidated, harassed, and possibly murdered.
Investigator Skuletich and Attorney General Marc Racicot did not feel that witness complaints such as this letter by Gaylee Schleve to the Sidney Herald were significant:
Editor To The Editor This letter is a response to the recent announcement of a finding that there was "insufficient evidence" concerning drug use by law enforcement individuals in Sidney and that the CIB investigation of these individuals has ceased. It is my information that: the investigation was focused on criminal activities or activities which could be prosecuted. The standard for law enforcement professionals should be ZERO TOLERANCE of any involvement with drugs or drug use. In that case the CIB investigation was very flawed. If an incident occurred two years ago, five years ago, or ten years ago and the individual was involved in law enforcement they should be off the Sidney force. But what most concerns me is that witnesses to the investigation may have been afraid to come forward. The three gentlemen who made the original affidavits are now being sued for slander. The law suit was brought during the investigation. Additionally, Greg Wing and Jacob Lorenz were co-operating witnesses with the CIB investigation and saw members of their families get in serious legal problems months after they came forward with information. This raises question in my mind. But when two Sidney law enforcement individuals came to my relative's house in rural Richland County to speak with him as a possible witness during the investigation I became concerned that there may be a real attempt to keep people from coming forward by the subjects of the investigation. I believe the Sidney Police Commission should consider these issues.
I think that there should be ZERO TOLERANCE for law enforcement officials. I believe no policeman should be associated with drug use, I hope the Sidney Police Commission feels the same way. I am sure all honest people of Sidney and Richland County feel the same way I do.
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Gaylee Schleve, an irate family member complained publicly — in the newspaper — her family members were being harassed during the ongoing investigation. Yet, even in the midst of a gubernatorial campaign Marc Racicot remained stoic concerning the Sidney investigations. While the authorities looked the other way prosecutor Carter and detective Schettine prosecuted at least 15 of the witnesses, all the while ignoring the conflict of interest problems raised. Carter and Schettine also joined together in suing Councilman Hobbs and several other witnesses for slander.
By the time the letter from Gaylee Schleve appeared in the Sidney Herald, Ken Tarply, an employee of Carter's Lucky Strike Casino in Havre was also giving information to Arizona private investigator Michael Roe. Michael Roe was examining closely similar patterns between drug flight allegations in Sidney and Chinook. The flights in Chinook involved Blaine County Attorney Donald Ranstrom.
Weeks before Gaylee Schleve's letter appeared, Michael Roe, while in Sidney, had obtained a cassette from Anita Tomalino's telephone message recorder. Anita Tomalino had witnessed Clinton Mullein and his wife Rena as they were brutally beaten-up outside a Sidney nightspot, after Clinton Mullen refused to haul drugs for Phillip Carter in Mullen's trucking operation. According to sworn testimony of other witnesses, another Sidney attorney often associated with Carter, Gary Ryder had instigated the beating.
The message tape had anonymous death threats on it- which warned Anita that she would be killed if she didn't "keep quiet".
Also, while Roe was in Helena he discovered that Marc Racicot had ordered that the "Sidney and Chinook" corruption "investigations were to be ignored". Puzzled Michael Roe submitted his report to the FBI in Great Falls along with the tape of the threats to Anita Tomalino. Later Roe found that his first report and the Tomalino tape were misplaced or lost by the FBI.
By February, 1994 when Michael Roe submitted a second report to the FBI; three individuals who were apparently co-operating with several of the investigations; Jerry Herdt, Michael Wolfe (along with his friend Bruce Madison), and Robert Voss had died in highly suspicious circumstances. Numerous other witnesses confirmed they had also been threatened and intimidated, and the new Montana Attorney General Joseph Mazurek announced that he could find "no evidence" (even circumstantial) implicating Phillip Carter and Detective David Schettine in wrongdoing.
Similarly, Billings FBI Station Chief James Cleaver, turned the allegations of violations of federal law from the Roe Report over to Glasgow FBI agent Scott Cruise, who eventually determined in 1996 that there was no "credible evidence" involved in the allegations, despite the fact agent Cruise admittedly did not interview witnesses.
The Schleve letter shows that participants in the smuggling operation cruelly crushed witnesses who came forward.
In time, the Sidney drug allegations would have gradually been forgotten. Dave Schettine, Gary Ryder, and J.D.Alexander (a lawyer who loudly supported Hobbs' investigation efforts) all left Sidney. The Wolfe, Madsen, Voss, and Herdt families grew frustrated , then left the investigations to officials who were sworn to be responsible to investigate the deaths of their loved ones.
Then, as if by magic, startling new independent reports surfaced early last year about a Canadian to Montana drug ring operating in Sidney, Chinook, Havre, and the Fort Peck reservation.
The reports first originated from a retired CIA officer, Chip Tatum, as well as other individuals linked to US intelligence operations. One intelligence source close to a DEA/CIA investigation of drug smuggling, claimed that federal investigators had established that Montana's governor, Marc Racicot, had taken payments from the drug operation. Still further corroboration for the new story came when Canadian RCMP sources advised several US persons that Miami FBI agent Terry Nelson was being "sought for arrest in Saskatchewan for felony drug conspiracy related activities". Sources also advised that former Glasgow FBI agents, Scott Cruise and James Wixon, were also involved in the drug conspiracy.
Currently, as more witness reports come in from Chinook, Havre, and Fort Peck Reservation parallel accounts emerge. A large number of witnesses who previously attempted to report official corruption all along the Montana Hi-Line were intimidated, threatened and perhaps murdered. The time frame of the involvement of Marc Racicot with the Nelson drug operation coincides with times Marc Racicot was responsible to investigate drug allegations involving drug flights into Sidney, Montana. Similarly, FBI agent Scott Cruise , who could find no "credible evidence" of wrongdoing on the part of Donald Ranstrom, or Phillip Carter, was also linked to the drug conspiracy which was busy bringing in "multi-ton shipments of heroin and cocaine" from Canada to airstrips in Sidney, Havre, Chinook, and the Fort Peck Reservation. This involvement came as Cruise ostensibly "bumbled" the investigation of drugs in Sidney and Chinook.
As witness accounts are cross-referenced by researchers, it is likely as many as 58 drug-related murders in Montana are related to a long time continuing drug enterprise involving FBI agents, and corrupt officials in Montana. The facade of a heavy-handed cover-up is gradually being publicly revealed.
When Shana Carter confronted Corinne Herdt neither of the two women realized that their dispute over Phillip Carter would focus very unwanted media attention on other matters. Corinne Herdt was the ex-wife of Jerry Herdt, who died two weeks after trying to meet with persons associated with the Hobbs investigation. Herdt had told those friends he was giving information to "FBI agents" about Phil Carter's involvement in large-scale drug dealing. Herdt knew at the time, that his wife, Corinne, was sexually involved with attorney Phillip Carter.
The courthouse fight in Sidney has complicated matters for District Judge Richard Phillips. Jerry Herdt, like Michael Wolfe, who was murdered in December, 1993, seemed to be giving information to authorities about drug corruption involving Sidney officials. Wolfe, had advised friends Detective David Schettine was about to kill him in the days immediately before he died along with his friend Bruce Madsen. Suddenly for the first time in many years there was talk of cleaning up the courthouse in Sidney.
The talk revolved around serial killings linked to a Canadian drug smuggling operation into Sidney. Whispers spoke of possible capital murder-for-hire charges against some of the persons involved. These same conversations were also taking place in Helena.
It was the kind of talk District Judge Richard Phillips did not want to be associated with. Yet Sidney's courthouse fight had spilled into his chambers, and was not settled after the first round.