Federal Judge

The Glasgow Courier reports a federal judge in Great Falls on Thursday halted construction of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline and vacated a 2017 presidential permit issued by the U.S. State Department. In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Brian Morris wrote that the State Department’s analysis of several issues, including increased greenhouse gas emissions, spill procedures and market modelin

A federal judge in Virginia this week ordered a freeze on all assets of the developer of a massive Billings mansion on the grounds that he defrauded multiple investors of nearly $18 million. 38-year-old Larry Price Jr. allegedly engaged in financial transactions for personal gain while raising money to build the 26,000-square-foot mansion in the Ironwood subdivision on Billings West End... Read Mo

The Gazette reports that a federal judge in Billings on Thursday sentenced a Washington state man to five years in prison for bringing women to Montana to work as his prostitutes. U.S. District Judge Susan Watters called the operation run by defendant, 24-year-old Andrew Rivera of Tacoma, sophisticated...

An Anaconda, Montana man and Oregon federal refuge occupier Ryan Payne, has been denied a request to withdraw his guilty plea by a federal judge.  U.S. District Judge Anna Brown ruled Wednesday that Payne’s plea in the Oregon case wasn’t, as his attorney argued, contingent on reaching a plea agreement in another case against him in Nevada...