Ellsworth’s checkered past

by Larry Keogh, Hamilton

I suspect that we (Montanans) are missing the primary story regarding Jason Ellsworth. Yes, he attempted to bifurcate his friend/business associate’s billing to provide him with a nice little bonus of $170,000. 

Remember what the quote was for. Monitoring how the Senate was doing as the “oversight” committee was attempting to gut the authority of the Judicial System. 

Now why would the two people that were fined $650,000 by the Courts want to have some element of control over the Judicial System, I wonder? 

Note that the $650,000 fine was imposed due to non-compliance with the mutually agreed settlement to turn over the client lists of his magazine subscription business. You remember those calls? Interrupting dinner to pitch magazines that you could just as well purchase, if desired, from the supermarket tabloid stand. 

When he changed the subscription billing to benefit himself and his company, charging clients more frequently than agreed to? The settlement was supposed to keep him from harming people again, and again.

Through shenanigans at the 2023 Montana State Legislature Ellsworth formed his “Special Select Committee on Judicial Oversight and Reform.” The sham billing from newly created “Agile Analytics” company was to provide checkups on the bill implementation progress – seeing how well it was performing at reining in the Courts. 

Yes, we in Montana are duped into paying a crook to take money from our pockets. That should be the primary story.