Distinctly Montana Magazine

D I S T I N C T L Y M O N T A N A M A G A Z I N E • F A L L 2 0 2 0 72 golf course, not to mention world- class fishing at Fort Peck Lake less than an hour away. Kelly, originally from Sidney, had always loved Mon- tana's northern plains and figured the appeal would be an easy sell. It did not work out the way he'd hoped. After unloading fewer than a quarter of the units in ten years, he ran out of money and sought fund- ing to keep his little enclave afloat. After piecing off parcels for several years, in 1996 he sold his remaining interest to a Seattle property devel- oper which promptly went bankrupt and was eventually convicted on several counts of securities fraud. By this time St. Marie was home to a couple hundred people—mostly retired military—although no ser- vices were available in the commu- nity save for a post office, a town hall, and a condo association that maintains the occupied properties. Glasgow remained the go-to for everyone's needs. Fast-forward to 2012, and Kelly had fallen behind in tax payments for hundreds of the remaining properties. The housing market had driven up costs, even in St. Marie. Several owners had declared bankruptcy, and condo sales tapered off. Financially strapped, Kelly was unable to move forward on any renovations. So most of St. Marie sat empty and dilapidated, seeming to sag earthward with each passing year, along with Kelly's dream. And then the Sovereign Citizens showed up. In 2012 a couple of men from Ephrata, Washington, working under the name DTM Enterprises LLC, filed tax liens totaling $212,686 on 483 units in St. Marie. Kelly was given sixty days to come up with the payments or DTM would effectively take ownership of the houses. Terry Lee Brauner and Merrill Franz were members of an anti-government group called the Sovereigns, an extremist movement that spurns such meddlesome governmentmental mandates as driver's licenses, law enforcement, courts and, of course, taxes. The FBI describes the group as "paper terrorists" who became known for inundating the courts with frivolous lawsuits and punitive liens. Brauner and Franz had gained Kelly's trust by promising to rehabilitate the structures in St. Marie to provide housing for the workers of the booming Bakken oil field 150 miles to the east. Brauner soon began showing up at community meetings in Glasgow and became a regular at the Valley County courthouse, where his refusal to obtain a Montana driver's license, among other things, put him on the wrong side of the law. The Sovereigns unleashed an avalanche of lawsuits against the homeowners and residents of St. Marie, suing over such things as the division of community property and access to public roads. No Trespassing signs containing threaten- ing language and repeated references to the Constitution popped up all over St. Marie. Kelly quickly soured on the sovereigns' hijinks and warned his neighbors that the newcomers would be expounding their radical philosophy. The local judiciary, fed up with Brauner gumming up the courts with his bogus lawsuits, shut down the sovereigns' fusillade of paper, but not before several St. Marie residents had to pony up court fees to defend themselves. Having worn out their welcome, DTM eventually gave up their attempted takeover and moved on. Meanwhile, Kelly had been working through other channels, seeking an investor who could bail out his beloved community. En- ter Michael Mitchell, a commodities trader who pumped $400,000 into the St. Marie Development Corporation. By now Kelly's vision for the St. Marie development was fast approaching quixotic, and according to sources who were involved in the subsequent lawsuit,

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