Judge Ralph Dukart Arrested for Drunk Driving

MILES CITY, Mont.

A city judge in Miles City has been accused of drunken driving.

Miles City Police Department records show City Judge Ralph Dukart was arrested on a charge of driving under the influence per se at 1:40 a.m. Tuesday.

In addition, the 60-year-old Dukart was charged with failing to drive on the right side of the road.

Local Justice of the Peace Don Neese says both charges are misdemeanors and Dukart has been released on his own recognizance.

Dukart declined comment when reached by telephone at his home Tuesday.

He is scheduled to appear before Neese, but Neese says he will recuse himself and bring in a judge from outside the area to handle the case.

Dukart is serving his first four-year term as city judge and has filed to seek another term in November 2009.
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Information from: Miles City Star, http://www.milescitystar.com

Officer Aaron Pepion Arrested for Having Sex with Young Girl

A Blackfeet police officer who resigned three weeks ago has been arrested on allegations that he had sex with a young girl.

The U.S. Attorney's Office says Aaron Pepion is being held without bail. Pepion was in court before a magistrate Wednesday in Missoula and will be in court again today on a bond hearing.

Prosecutors say Pepion had sex in April with a girl who was born in 1994. No age was listed for Pepion in his charging documents.

Blackfeet Tribal Department of Public Safety Director Henry Devereaux says the FBI investigated Pepion in July and he resigned three weeks ago. Devereaux says Pepion had been an officer for about a year when officials began investigating the allegations against him.

Hearing for Former Officer Jason Huntsinger accused of Child Porn Postponed

Missoula, Mont.

A plea hearing has been postponed for a former Missoula police officer accused of receiving child pornography through a computer owned by the police union.

Jason Huntsinger had agreed to plead guilty Thursday to a federal charge of receipt of obscene material, but his hearing was rescheduled for March 5 at his attorney's request.

Prosecutors say Huntsinger used a credit card and a PayPal account to access a child pornography Web site and used a post office box number assigned to a federal drug task force as the address attached to the credit card. He is accused of using a laptop belonging to the Missoula Police Protective Association to view the site.

Federal agents seized the laptop and Huntsinger's work computer in September 2007. Huntsinger remained on city's payroll for almost a year before he was put on paid leave. He resigned in September.

Information from: Missoulian, http://www.missoulian.com

Former Officer Daniel Huntsinger Pleads Guilty to Having Child Porn

A former Missoula police officer will plead guilty Feb. 12 to a federal charge of receiving sexually explicit photos of children over a computer owned by the police union.

Daniel Jason Huntsinger, who was hired in Missoula in January 2000, is charged with a single count of receipt of obscene material and will appear in U.S. District Court in Missoula.

Documents filed in federal court in Missoula outline the case against Huntsinger and note his agreement to plead guilty to the single federal charge.

Huntsinger, who spent more than a year on administrative leave, resigned from the Missoula Police Department last September. He had been under a cloud of suspicion since Sept. 10, 2007, when federal agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement seized his work computer at Missoula City Hall and a laptop computer from the Missoula Police Protective Association.

At the time, police officials repeatedly declined to say why Huntsinger was on leave, citing employment privacy concerns.

According to an offer of proof filed in the case, the investigation got under way in April 2006 when ICE agents began looking at commercial Web sites that offered “pay subscriptions to pornography and erotica depicting persons under the age of 18 years of age.”

In December 2006, Huntsinger used a Sears MasterCard and a PayPal account to buy access to a Web site called “Lolitas on Holiday.” Huntsinger registered with an e-mail address of busyhands264@aol.com and used as his MasterCard address a post office box number registered to a federal drug task force to which he was detailed.

“He used a computer belonging to the Missoula Police Protective Association, of which he was then president, to access the site,” states the offer of proof from Assistant U.S. Attorney Marcia Hurd.

A forensic examination of that computer “revealed that Huntsinger had used the computer to access the purchased site, as well as used the computer to search the Internet for various other types of images,” Hurd wrote. “Some of the images found were obscene, in that they were images of persons under the age of 18 years engaged in sexually explicit conduct by the lascivious exhibition of their genital areas.”

The offer of proof said Huntsinger also had visited other Internet pornography sites involving juveniles.

The documents state that Huntsinger has agreed to plead guilty, but there is no reference to a sentencing recommendation.

The crime is punishable by up to five years in prison, a $250,000 fine and three years of supervised release. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jessica Fehr said the department would have no further comment until Huntsinger appears in court.

Jason Huntsinger was a popular officer who moved quickly up the ranks in Missoula, but his reputation eventually started to unwind on two lines.

Missoula Police Chief Mark Muir was assistant chief when the September 2007 search took place, but he put together bits and pieces of the case as time dragged on and Huntsinger remained on paid leave.

By the time Muir became chief in June 2008, he knew a handful of things.

“I knew that our computer had been taken and been returned, and I knew that the association's computer hadn't,” Muir said. “I knew a credit card had been used, and I knew he used the HIDTA (High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area) address. I also knew what ICE investigates, so I had an idea what was in the balance. But I didn't have any other evidence.”

Still, by July, Muir was ready to tell Huntsinger that his paid leave was over.

“I had to decide how long I'd let this go on,” he said. “We'd already been past two deadlines where the feds had told us they'd be done (with the investigation), and I had to make a decision as to whether the taxpayers should keep paying for this guy.”

Muir called Huntsinger in and told him he'd return him to his job if he was cleared, but for now, he was on unpaid leave.

“He told me he'd be back at work one day,” Muir said.

Less than three months later, on Sept. 25, 2008, Huntsinger called Muir and wanted to visit.

“He came in and gave me a one- or two-line resignation and that was it,” Muir said.

Huntsinger's reputation had taken another hit in March, when details of his departure from a previous police job in Downey, Calif., appeared in the Missoulian.

Based on interviews of officers and city officials in Missoula and Downey, the story revealed that Huntsinger lost his job in Downey for two reasons.

First, he had taken pictures of female crime victims for evidence. Those pictures involved intimate areas and would normally have been taken by a female officer or evidence technician.

Worse, the pictures were found in Huntsinger's personal possession rather than an evidence locker, officers aware of Huntsinger's employment told the newspaper. The women later told Downey officers they were uncomfortable with Huntsinger taking the pictures, but didn't say anything because he was a police officer.

Second, another female crime victim became concerned about Huntsinger's solicitous behavior toward her after he investigated the crime committed against her.

“She wasn't clear who the good guys were anymore,” a former Montana law enforcement official said.

Although Downey officers said Huntsinger's employment file revealed precise reasons for his departure, the Missoula Police Department's vetting process failed to find the information when he applied for work here.

Former Missoula Police Chief Pete Lawrenson said last March that he wasn't as thorough as he should have been in the hiring process.

On two subsequent occasions after his hiring, Missoula police were notified about Huntsinger's issues in Downey, but he remained on the force and eventually became a sergeant.

Then came Sept. 10, 2007, when ICE officers entered the police department and seized Huntsinger's computers.

Because Huntsinger resigned from the department last year, the federal charge won't have an effect on day-to-day operations at the police department. However, the case still may affect both the department and the city of Missoula.

Huntsinger is currently a defendant, along with the city, in a federal case filed by Dr. Walt Peschel. Peschel claims his civil rights were violated when he was arrested in 2007 while trying to help a suicidal woman.

Huntsinger was the ranking officer in that case and was also the last person to allegedly view a police video of the incident before the video disappeared.

Peschel's attorneys have argued that it's possible Huntsinger erased the video.

“I think it's fair to say that this is interesting information having to do with one of the principal officers involved in the events that gave rise to our case,” said attorney David Paoli, who represents Peschel. “It really has us looking at the hiring and retention practices at the police department.”

Huntsinger will soon be deposed in the Peschel case, Paoli said.

But first he will appear Feb. 12 in Missoula before U.S. District Judge Don Molloy.

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More Information: http://www.montanasnewsstation.com/Global/story.asp?S=9795724&nav=menu227_8