In 2019, a man named Nathan White ran for mayor of Choteau, Montana in a special election. He garnered 6% of the vote without campaigning and earned the support of several prominent figures including a judge and a city councilman. He planned to run again in the 2021 mayoral race with a full campaign effort and many locals were behind him. But in the spring of 2021 Nate was arrested on spurious charges and transported 99 miles away to a detention center in Fort Benton. After missing the 2021 filing deadline White was forced to abandon his campaign to clear his name.
Nestled on the eastern prairies of the Rocky Mountain Front sits the small town of Choteau, Montana. With a population of 1,787, everybody knows everybody else in this rural ranching community. Originally a trading post, Choteau was incorporated in 1913 and named after a French fur trader by the name of Pierre Chouteau, Jr. The locale got a shout-out in the original Jurassic Park movie because of its proximity to a world-famous paleontology site called Egg Mountain. There is even an occasional appearance by former late-night host David Letterman who owns a nearby vacation ranch he purchased back in 1999.
Choteau is also a town that daily announces 12 o’clock noon by blaring an air-raid siren from the “duck-and-cover” era that locals refer to as the “noon whistle”.
It certainly feels like eastern Montana with the rolling plains and constant wind but one look west yields the epic eastern ridgeline of the Bob Marshall Wilderness. Glacier Park and Great Falls are also both just a quick pony ride away. This is the slice of the Rocky Mountain West that Nathan fell in love with nearly two decades ago.
Nate’s old home address at 204 Sixth Avenue NE sits a stone’s throw away from both Choteau City Hall and the historic Teton County Courthouse building. Nate and his wife bought their house in 2010 after moving up from Helena the year prior. During the winter months both worked as ski instructors on local slopes throughout the state. During the summer months Nate worked as a construction contractor to finance his increasingly full-time side career as a writer/researcher.
White became a regular at local government meetings as a matter of civic duty and his criticisms were numerous. But perhaps the most universally volatile issue Nate helped expose was the creation of a local port authority that conflicted with the will of local voters who overwhelmingly rejected it at the polls.
When the idea of a port authority was pitched to the voters of Teton County in 2016, they voted against it “in all five of the county’s voter precincts”. But popular will didn’t stop its formation. In the spring of 2017 the four members of the Choteau City Council voted unanimously to create a port authority anyway for reasons of “economic development”. They called it the Choteau Area Port Authority (CAPA) and it has attracted fierce criticism from many locals ever since.
The Acantha described it like this:
“The port authority, as one proponent puts it, is a funny name for an economic development tool that the state Legislature created for counties and cities to use. Toole, Pondera and Cascade counties as well as the city of Great Falls presently use their own port authorities to leverage grants for economic development, to provide assistance to business start-ups, to recruit potential businesses to their communities, and to help businesses cut through red tape … The way we see it, the establishment and stable funding for a Teton County Port Authority is an investment in the future of our county that we cannot afford to pass up. We have to plant this crop, folks, and we have to do everything possible to make sure that it yields a harvest of jobs and economic opportunities.”
As evidence of the so-called “economic development” created by a port authority in neighboring Toole County, proponents emphasized the job creation catalyzed by the private prison in Shelby, Montana. Doing business with the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) might seem completely acceptable if “increasing taxable value” is the primary motivation, but such Faustian contracts seem like a dismal excuse for increasing revenue if sacrificing our humanity is the price. The ACLU described CCA prisons as inhumane and unsafe, and undercover journalist Shane Bauer exposed how destructive they are to both inmates and guards during his “four months as a private prison guard”. In any event, more prisons are evidence of society’s decay, not its health. That private prisons are touted as “economic development” serves a useful reminder that not all growth is good; some growth is cancerous.
Whether it’s good for the gander or not, Nate asserts that the problem centers around the fact that Teton County citizens voted “no” on the proposed port authority but local bureaucrats ended up establishing it anyway. Consequently, local taxes were levied to pay for it.
“Mary Sexton helped create this port authority and appointed herself as the head of it,” says White. “Before the vote had even taken place, she was saying that if it doesn’t get voted in by the people, we’ll install it anyway. So people refer to her as Queen Mary because she was once a Rodeo Queen in Montana, and because that’s her attitude – that she knows better than the locals do because she has a degree from Stanford.”
Mary Sexton became the Chair of the Choteau Area Port Authority shortly after it began to receive funding on 01 July 2017. Then she replaced Jim Larson as the Chair of the Montana Democrat Party the following month on 12 August 2017. As the Acantha reported at the time:
“Mary Sexton of Choteau was elected the chairwoman of the Montana Democratic Party on Aug. 12 … Sexton served as director of Natural Resources and Conservation from 2006 to 2013 under then-Gov. Brian Schweitzer and is a former Teton County Commissioner. She presently serves on the Choteau Area Port Authority and is active in economic development in Choteau and Teton County.”
Sexton’s career as a bureaucrat seems to have reached an apex with her appointment to CAPA as board chairwoman. The question of who exactly benefits from this nebulous “economic development” remains a mystery to most of the public, however, especially when certain operations are grant funded.
Since it can be notoriously difficult to find a place to eat in Choteau before 11 a.m., we asked some of the locals where this economic development was supposedly occurring.
“The port authority is an incredible joke,” says former City Councilman Jim Anderson.
Jim served on the Choteau City Council for eight years, representing Ward 1 from January of 2006 until December of 2013. During our visit to his office at Grizzly Auto Repair in Choteau, he told us that instead of bolstering the local economy, as the port authority promised, the City issued his auto shop a cease-and-desist order for normal operating practices.
“The port authority has not done anything to promote business in Choteau,” says Anderson. “It was supposed to promote business. It’s a total waste of time and the county voted it down. And the grant money always goes to engineers while the taxpayers pay through the nose.”
Nate contends that the grants are part of the problem. “These grants come in but where is this so-called economic development occurring?” he asks. “Who is benefiting from it? Mary Sexton received a $60,000 grant for Grizzly bear habitat.”
We asked Mary Sexton if she had received such a grant, and if so, how this money would impact Grizzly populations. She gave us the following response, “I did a conservation easement through Vital Ground which precludes any further development/subdivision, must remain in agriculture, with parameters for dealing with bears.”
As the person responsible for generating economic development in her capacity with CAPA, it seems contradictory that Sexton received a grant that explicitly prohibits development from occurring, at least as far as the Glen Willow Ranch is concerned. Sexton did not elaborate and she declined to tell us anything about her involvement with the port authority or her affiliation with the Democrat Party. As such, we were deprived of the chance to ask her whether she agrees with our assessment that it seems tragically ironic that an anti-democratic decision (such as the creation of an unelected body against popular will) was made with the blessing of the Montana Democrat Party’s Chairwoman.
White says that the common locals do not benefit from CAPA grant monies. “Career bureaucrats at the port authority have subverted local government and are leading us off a cliff while they endlessly grab for grants attached to big government strings,” he says. “Choteau has become a federal colony that’s addicted to government cheese.”
THE SPECIAL ELECTION
After John “Jack” Conatser succeeded Jay Dunckel as mayor of Choteau in 2013, he won a second term in 2017. Not long after this second victory Conatser was diagnosed with cancer in 2018 and his untimely illness threw quite a wrench into the proverbial works of the rotation sequence. Mayoral terms are 4 years long and the ongoing term wasn’t up until 2021. So after Conatser’s resignation, Dan Lannen was sworn in as the interim mayor in June of 2018 until the position could go up for a special election in 2019. That’s when Nathan first decided it was time to put his hat in the ring for mayor of Choteau.
Candidate Nate White platformed on cleaning up the local government which he described as running rampant with dysfunction and conflicts of interest at the expense of residents. At the Choteau Mayoral Candidate Forum on 24 September 2019, he championed restorative justice practices as a means of allowing communities to invent creative solutions and solve their own problems.
It seemed clear that the undemocratic implementation of the port authority had strongly motivated Nate’s run for office. As he told the audience that evening, “While we do talk about economic development quite a bit I don’t think we need to have an outcome in mind and then try to control everyone to arrive at that desired outcome. … We need to establish facts, not fictions. Now is time.”
Near the end of the assembly, Nate concluded his remarks by saying:
“You know what I see as positive? Living in a community where we can actually afford to live here,” said White. “Mary Sexton, she wants to talk about economic development, and we don’t want this place to turn into Whitefish. How are we going to achieve that? I don’t want this place to turn into a toxified garbage dump run by Nazis.”
Former councilman Jim Anderson was encouraged by Nate’s mayoral run. “I have known Nate a long time,” he says. “I did support him.”
IT DOESN’T TAKE A BIG PERSON TO CARRY A GRUDGE
Come November 2019 the seasons had changed and Chris Hindoien emerged as the victor for Choteau’s Mayor. The headline in the paper didn’t surprise Nate. But as he read on he was indeed surprised to see that more people had voted against Hindoien than had voted for him. In a race with three candidates, 6.5% of voters chose Nathan White for mayor. With another election just two years away, Nate recognized the potential and became serious about running again in 2021 with a full campaign. He even rented out an office in historic downtown Choteau for the occasion and stocked it with signs, stickers and buttons.
Then the Covid-19 nightmare began. Just four months after the election, global customs changed for the worse. Nate was among the earliest critics of the corporate narrative being forced at the time, which made him an unrepentant “grandma killer” in the eyes of the herd of hyperbolic hypochondriacs who were hypnotized by St. Fauci’s needle cult.
Most routines were disrupted as the world succumbed to the paranoid global-shutdown panic of 2020. The custom of Choteau’s “noon whistle” prevailed, however, and on the fateful afternoon of 14 September 2020 it happened to go off as Nate was walking past the City office. After purportedly stepping inside to complain about the siren’s long duration he was asked to leave and then law enforcement was called.
Officers responded to this alleged “disturbance” and left something priceless behind.
Bodycam footage captured by the Teton County Sheriff’s Office exhibits a bizarre conversation between Mayor Chris Hindoien and Deputy Jeff Kraft concerning future dealings with Nathan White. When the deputy arrives he first speaks with Nate outside. Nate tells the deputy that City Finance Officer Jodi Rogers escalated the situation and prompted him to leave the building. Though the noon whistle is often referred to as “teeth rattling” by locals, Nate maintains that his dispute with city officials had little to do with that.
“I don’t want to come in here and yell at Jodi,” says Nate. “I also don’t want Jodi to yell at me. But it’s like, Jodi you’re frickin’ screaming at me. As soon as I started talking about that financial audit she got real nervous because she’s running the books.”
After Nate says this, Deputy Kraft bids him farewell and steps into city hall to follow up with the people who called him down there. Upon entering the room, Deputy Kraft says to them, “I’ve got to admit I’m struggling on what exactly we’re gonna be able to do. I mean, we can always fall back on like a disorderly conduct but, I don’t know if that’s going to – is it going to make it better or worse? I don’t know. I mean, it’s not like we can arrest on it. You can’t even arrest on it anymore. I mean, it’s a cite. And going to court I don’t know what to do with him.”
Mayor Hindoien replies, “But to be honest, he [Nate] owns no property inside the city limits of Choteau. He pays no taxes inside the city limits of Choteau. He has no business inside of this building. He doesn’t have to pay garbage, he doesn’t have to pay sewer, he doesn’t have to pay water.”
Kraft says, “I don’t know if we can do that though. I mean, if–”
Hindoien repeats, “He has no reason to be in this building.”
Deputy Kraft sighs, “But the problem is it’s a government building.”
The mayor nods and says, “I am well aware of that.”
Deputy Kraft says, “If there is something that you can pursue as far as, like, a safety issue to exclude him or something, that’s one thing. But I can’t tell him – I couldn’t tell him not to go to the courthouse either. I just, I can’t. … Now as far as an order of protection or something, that’s a different matter. And that’s something that you might need to investigate.”
Mayor Hindoien says, “And we’re looking into that. … Tomorrow night’s city council meeting will be very, very entertaining because you know he’ll be there.
Kraft says, “I thought he was excluded from those.”
“Nope,” Hindoien shakes his head. “We never got in a point where we could do it. Jen was waiting for one more blow up. And again, he’s not a citizen of Choteau.”
Deputy Kraft thinks for a moment and says, “Um, let me, let me try to do a little brainstorming on this. I’m kind of at a loss of what legally we can bring against him other than, like I said, there’s a disorderly conduct issue because he’s yelling profanities. But it’s going to have to get down to a point where we look at a protection order kind of thing. You know. A restraining order or something of that nature. By law I just don’t know what else I can do right now. … We’ll figure something out. I just, I’ve got to be honest with you, right now I don’t know what it is.”
“I’m with you,” replies Hindoien. “If I thought there was a magic button or a magic key–”
Kraft interjects, “I would encourage you guys, no matter what we can do, to pursue that order of protection. I don’t know what the legalities of it are, um, but I would think that would be one of the few ways we could actually get him excluded from the building, if – if it were legal to grant an order under those circumstances. … And that’s the key right there is we’re excluding him from you guys, not from the building. And so maybe that is a way that we can work around this and still be – because you know he’s about the constitution right? And he is a lot of stuff but he’s not dumb. So they’re going to have to do things the right way on this one. So we’ll see what we can do. Um, there’ll be something out there it’s just sometimes we have to think a little harder and come up with some different solutions.”
It’s at this point that City Finance Officer Jodi Rogers perks up and says, “Do you want me to tell you what Denny Blauer did once with Lisa? He went over there and let her punch him. Anyway, I’m just suggesting– ”
As laughter fills the room, Rogers continues, “We could haul off after a pounding and ask him for it.”
Deputy Kraft immediately steps away and says, “La-la-la-la-la. See you guys.”
Kraft finally makes his exit, and while fiddling with the camera he can be heard saying under his breath, “I’m going to turn this thing off before you say anything else.” The video ends there.
This bodycam video captured public officials apparently joking about entrapment through deliberate provocation. City Finance Officer Jodi Rogers described an occasion where a local woman named Lisa Knox-Seith was coerced through intimidation into striking a law enforcement officer and then involuntarily committed to the state mental hospital in Warm Springs for doing so. As reported by the Choteau Acantha on 27 October 2010:
“Lisa Knox-Seith, 50, 128 Second Ave. S.W. Choteau, participated in a court hearing in Choteau via the VisionNet interactive video service from Warm Springs, on Oct. 19. Her public defender, Dan Minnis of Cut Bank, was present in the courtroom. Knox-Seith pleaded innocent to assault with a weapon and assault on a peace officer, both felonies. Knox-Seith is accused of striking a Choteau man on the head with a shovel during a confrontation in their neighborhood on Sept. 25, 2010. She is also accused of striking Undersheriff Denny Blauer as he secured her in a patrol car after the altercation. She pleaded innocent to both charges.”
Beyond that, the mayor’s justifications are based on the fallacy that only those who pay local taxes are eligible for admittance into local government buildings. Throughout the video, Hindoien repeatedly attempts to convince Deputy Kraft that Nate had abandoned his property and was living elsewhere.
“He’s not even a citizen of the city of Choteau anymore,” says Hindoien, “He lives out in Farmington. He has no business being in this building whatsoever.”
“Really?” says Kraft. “When did he move?”
“The well at his place collapsed and they couldn’t get water over there,” says Hindoien.
But Nate did, in fact, live in the city limits in a house that he owned, and the records indicate that Hindoien was aware of this fact. In official letters sent to Nate’s home address from the mayor’s office in 2020 – that are even signed in ink by Hindoien himself – Nate’s address appears right next to his name on the letterhead.
“Our well never collapsed,” says White. “It is true that there was a lot of sediment that clogged those lines and that eventually blew up our pump. So we installed a hand pump. But we never stopped living in that house until we sold it in 2022.”
The mayor’s claim that Nate wasn’t local enough to enter a City building also seemed strangely contradictory given how he then directed the deputy’s attention to Nate’s downtown office. “[Nate’s] got an office above the insurance agency here too,” says Hindoien. “Upstairs.”
“For what?” asks Deputy Kraft, “His campaign?”
AN UPHILL CAMPAIGN
On 04 October 2020 Kathleen Williams held a rally in Choteau for her statewide campaign that was attended by White. As documented by court records, there was a physical altercation between White and a retired officer of the Choteau Police named Wade McKay. According to witness statements, McKay escalated the situation by shoving Nate.
“Wade McKay’s first words upon interacting with me were, ‘Where’s your mask?’” says White. “Then he gave me a chest bump so I said, ‘Get out of my face, partner.’ So he responded by saying, ‘I’m not your partner.’ And that’s when he pushed me down and stood over me with his fists clenched.”
Nate recalls the incident with a chuckle, “Kathleen Williams didn’t have a mask on and he didn’t yell at her or shove her to the ground. So what’s so triggering about me when I’m just there to speak with her?”
Deputy Devin Cichosz wrote in his statement that, “McKay told [Nate’s wife] to take White and go back to where they came from. [She] told Mckay that they live in Choteau, and then Mckay said not for long.” According to Deputy Cichosz, when McKay was later questioned at his home about the “incident,” he admitted that the shoving was due to the fact that he, “McKay did not like him being that close because he didn’t have a mask on.”
In fact, the primary complaint cited that day was the concern that “Mr. White wasn’t wearing a mask”. Debates over mask efficacy notwithstanding, failure to mask at an outdoor public setting fails to meet the qualifications for a crime as defined by law. Shoving another person, however, does. But no charges were brought against McKay, whose wife happened to work as the sheriff’s dispatcher at the time. Instead it was Nate who was later approached by law enforcement, even though witnesses confirmed to deputies that it was McKay who escalated the situation by shoving Nate, not the other way around.
THE THREAT THAT WASN’T
On 28 October 2020, while standing outside of the local post office, Nate White and Mayor Chris Hindoien were discussing the governor’s mask policy when Mary Sexton showed up to collect her mail. According to sheriff reports a man named Jeff Curtis began shouting at Nate from across the street. Curtis then called the sheriff’s office alleging that Nate had threatened him. Even though this apparent threat was never corroborated by the other witnesses present, including the mayor, Nate was later cited by law enforcement. While investigating this so-called “disturbance,” Deputy Shane Dean contacted Mary Sexton who “went on to say that what bothered her is that White did not have a mask on.”
In a recorded phone call regarding the post office encounter, Mary Sexton told Deputy Shane Dean, “You know, I believe in public places you wear a mask. And when you talk to people that you haven’t seen for a while, you wear a mask. And I have not seen him [Nate] wear a mask.”
Nate wasn’t charged for failure to mask because it’s not illegal, beliefs aside. Instead, he was charged with two counts of disorderly conduct; one for “making loud noises by yelling” and another for “challenging someone to a fist fight”.
“I never challenged anyone to a fight,” says White.
ACCUSATIONS OF VOTER INTERFERENCE
On 30 October 2020 Nate was scheduled to meet with Judge Pete Rasmussen to discuss the charges that followed his interactions at the post office. Justice Rasmussen was absent from the courthouse upon Nate’s arrival. So Nate began searching the building to find the judge and happened upon County Commissioner Jim Hodgkiss. The men began to talk, but as soon as their conversation began, Teton County Clerk Paula Joconetty entered the hallway to tell Nate their discussion was unwelcome. Law enforcement were called and more frivolous citations were filed, this time for allegedly disrupting voters. Hodgkiss was never visited by law enforcement for this apparent “disruption” or questioned about it like Nate was. And while the claim of voter intimidation was simply never supported by evidence, deputies were tasked with a fishing expedition nonetheless.
After speaking with one local voter who was present in the building at the time of the supposed incident, Deputy Jonathan Gilliland acknowledged in his report that, “She said that [Nate] wasn’t distracting her. … She also told me that she was surprised that I was calling her about the situation and didn’t want to fill out a statement.”
Teton County Clerk Paula Joconetty likewise admits in her own statement that, “Nate has been in the courthouse at least three times this week and has not been confrontational but he was asked to leave when he spent excess time with the election judge that is manning the ballot drop box.”
It makes absolutely no sense that law enforcement were called about this. But as the sheriff reports indicate, some public servants were ultimately triggered by the fact that Nathan White was not wearing a mask. That included Teton County Clerk Sandra Dogiakos who stated to authorities, “Nate White entered the second floor of the Courthouse from the North stairwell. Nate was not wearing a mask.” She went on to say, “This week, Nate has on several occasions stood inside the East Entrance of the courthouse while refusing to wear a mask.” County Clerk Paula Jaconetty’s testimony similarly states that, “Nate White, unmasked, was in the courthouse to see Justice of the Peace Pete Rasmussen.”
Contrary to popular assumption, failure to wear a mask never became a legitimate legal gripe for enforcers to act on. And since no citizens were willing to attest that Nate interfered with their ability to vote, the pending charges hinged on the testimony of county clerks who were employed by the same court already pursuing legal action against Nate. This is how a polite conversation with a county commissioner resulted in an additional disorderly conduct charge for “disturbing a lawful assembly”.
Nate wouldn’t find out about this until the next day, when he was arrested at home.
A VERY SCARY HALLOWEEN
While walking through town on 31 October 2020 Nate made an inquiry regarding a sign at the courthouse that read, “social distance saves lives.” He says he couldn’t believe that his tax dollars were funding Covid propaganda. Because Nate is a man who speaks his mind, he stuck his head into the office and was met by Sandra Dogiakos. He asked who was responsible for “posting signs with fallacious information”. She asked him to leave and he immediately left. But for asking this question Nate was arrested at home later that day – while brushing his teeth – on yet another count of disorderly conduct for “disrupting a lawful assembly”.
A deputy was dispatched to Nate’s home to “talk about what happened” and shortly thereafter Nate was placed under arrest and taken to the local crowbar hotel. This encounter certainly begs the question: If Nate didn’t live in town, as the mayor frequently asserted to law enforcement, then how were deputies able to apprehend him at his home address?
Former City Councilman Jim Anderson bailed Nate out of jail later that evening.
“Nate made himself a target,” says Anderson. “They had to stop him because he was openly opposing their agendas. They had to stop him from spouting off like that.”
IF YOU CLIMB IN THE SADDLE BE READY FOR THE RIDE
The day before Nate was scheduled to appear in court for his disorderly charges, Deputy Kraft showed up at his residence on 03 MARCH 2021. Kraft served White a temporary order of protection on behalf of City Councilman Steve Dogiakos and his wife Sandra, the county clerk. The paperwork references Steve’s need to be protected from Nate, alleging he had “persistently harassed a public official” with intent to seek their home address.
Steve wasn’t just a councilman but also a board member of the port authority whom Nate wished to address, citizen to representative. Since Dogiakos wasn’t answering Nate’s Emails, Nate decided to send his inquiries via certified snail mail. But when he asked for a mailing address the councilman hit the ceiling. Instead of engaging with a constituent, Dogiakos applied for a restraining order.
Two weeks after this Nate was served with more criminal charges, this time from a six-month-old allegation stemming from his complaint about the noon whistle the previous autumn. Nate was summoned to appear on 17 March 2021 for remarks exchanged six months earlier on 14 September 2020 and charged with two counts of assault and another disorderly conduct. Added to the four charges of disorderly conduct from October, Nate now faced a total of seven formal lawbreaking allegations.
When Nate questioned why nobody informed him that criminal charges were pending for six months, officials alleged that it took that long to get the papers sent off to the county attorney’s office. But this was provably false since the relevant paperwork was all stamped by the county attorney’s office in October of the previous year. As outlined by Case Report # 220CR0001422, these forms were “Sent to County Attorney” and dated “10/3/20”.
Why did officials sit on these charges for half a year? Why litigate over an innocuous interaction from six months before, when Deputy Kraft affirmed to Mayor Hindoien that there was no offense he could arrest on?
A BREAK IN THE STORM
On 24 March 2021 Nate appeared in court for Steve Dogiakos’ protection order hearing. Dogiakos presumed that constituents have no business knowing where their elected officials live. But the restraining order was ultimately denied by the judge because elected officials are actually required to disclose their home addresses to the public. As it turns out, seeking a public official’s home address is a completely lawful act, and one upheld by the courts as constitutional under the First Amendment.
Judge Pete Rasmussen declared that this protection order constituted an unreasonable violation of Nate’s rights. Recalling his own career in city council, the judge told Dogiakos that angry constituents would often confront him in the grocery store and suggested that Mr. Dogiakos needed to “toughen up” because when you go into politics enduring criticism is part of the package. The attempt to impose a permanent restraining order against Nate was further deemed unlawful for failure to meet the legal requirement of eligibility, namely, a reasonable apprehension of bodily injury.
Nate’s rebuttal motion stated that:
“Mr. Dogiakos has maintained that Mr. White was violent toward Mr. Dogiakos because Mr. White asked City of Choteau employees for Mr. Dogiakos’ address. … Even if Mr. Dogiakos’ claims against Mr. White were accurate, the issuance of any Protective Order against Mr. White would serve to further the illegal harassment of Mr. White . There has been no fact presented to this Court that even suggests Mr. Dogiakos’ “fear” is anything other than feigned and/or irrational. Mr. White has never harmed nor threatened Mr. Dogiakos. … Furthermore, Mr. Dogiakos is attempting to use a False Protective Order to both impact the decision of a current and/or pending case(s) in the legal system, and to restrict Mr. White’s ability to take part in the local government. … Mr. White has spoken publicly regarding the political malfeasance of local public officials. Mr. White’s speech is protected and Mr. Dogiakos’ retaliation is unlawful [per] MCA 2-2-145.”
Nate won this battle and the restraining order was ultimately dismissed, but it added more pages to his jacket that helped continue to build a case against him. And the worst was yet to come.
CHECKMATE
On 10 May 2021 Nate White visited the office of Teton County Deputy Attorney Jennifer Stutz to address the cases she was prosecuting against him. Stutz had refused to talk with White, instructing him to correspond only in writing due to his “behavior in my office on previous occasions.”
Stutz continues, “He had been told many times not to come to our building as he is disruptive and keeps repeatedly raising the same grievances.” Since Nate was representing himself pro se, this inability to communicate directly with prosecutors posed a major problem for negotiating his cases.
Nate tells us, “I was raising the same grievances over and over because they were still unresolved and I was trying to resolve them.”
When Nate showed up at Stutz’s office on the Tenth of May to obtain documents related to his case, all hell broke loose.
White says, “Her husband Jeff was off duty when he showed up and said to me, ‘You can’t go in or I’m going to take you out!’ I went inside and told the clerk to call the cops and Jen responded by saying ‘Just leave!’ So I left, but as I was leaving the building, plain-clothes Jeff pushes me to the pavement, leaps on top of me and begins mauling me. Jeff said he was very upset that I’ve been mother-fuckering him all around town”.
Kraft’s report from that day reads, “The elements of this offense were established when the Suspect, Nathan White, stepped into the Teton County Courthouse Annex and began yelling at Deputy County Attorney Jennifer Stutz, causing herself and others in the building to be apprehensive for their safety.”
Kraft was off duty when he shackled Nate, and Undersheriff Ellsworth also responded to the call at the County Attorney’s Office. In his report, Ellsworth recounts a circular logic of Kafkaesque proportions: “On the way to the detention facility jail door White was informed he was under arrest for resisting arrest. White expressed dismay for this.”
Nate was genuinely surprised to find himself in handcuffs again. His trip to the annex netted him five new charges including criminal trespass, resisting arrest, another disorderly, and two counts of felony witness tampering.
Authorities determined that, while traveling in his truck, “Nate honked and waved at a known witness” named Jodi Rogers with his “evil grin” in an attempt to induce a change in her testimony, presumably for his charges back in September. But does honking a horn and waving while smiling really qualify as “witness tampering”? The deputy’s report deduces that because White and Rogers are not friends, “There is no reason for his behavior other than to intimidate Rogers.” Nate’s actions were similarly characterized by Stutz as “the conscious objective to induce fear for [Rogers’] personal safety.”
The second count of alleged witness tampering occurred the same day. Deputy Kraft wrote himself into his own report, alleging that Nate had, “made contact with Teton County Sheriff’s Deputy Jeff Kraft with the conscious objective to induce Deputy Kraft to amend his report and thereby testify or inform falsely.”
“The elements of this offense were established when the Suspect, Nathan White, knowing that I had investigated several cases in which he was the Suspect (and charged into court) approached me and told me that the statements I had attributed to him were lies, and that we needed to discuss them and change them. White clearly had the purpose of getting me, the investigating Deputy, to change my official report, and subsequently, my testimony.”
~Deputy Jeff Kraft TCSO 31-6
Nate tells us, “What I actually said was that you [Jeff] made untrue statements. Because he did. He lied in his report. And after I said that to him he assaulted me and threw me in jail.”
Having undergone a heart surgery two years prior, the overwhelming injustice of this arrest and subsequent detention drove Nate into a panic attack while in custody. Video evidence reveals that after Nate repeatedly insisted on medical attention, his limbs were bound to a restraining chair. He was then wheeled before a desk to call his lawyer by speakerphone.
The lawyer asked, “So, who are you on speakerphone with?”
Nate told him, “I’m tied up in a chair right now because I was repeatedly asking for medical treatment. Now I’m tied up in a chair.”
The lawyer responded, “Yeah, it’s probably better not to be talking, you know, on speakerphone.”
When Nate commented about his placement in the restraining chair as punishment, a jail staffer told him, “That chair is by no means punishment. I’m sorry you see it that way.”
Nate said, “Oh, it’s to keep me safe? Yeah.”
The jailer replied, “To keep you from injuring yourself.”
Nate shook his head and said, “No. Bullshit.”
Following this arrest, the authorities could have transported Nate to the nearby jail in Conrad which happened to be under capacity at the time. Instead, he was shipped 99 miles away to the jail on the Fort Benton Indian Reservation. He was then held on a $40,000 bond. To put that into perspective, this same detention facility was hosting another inmate at the time who was on the hook for blowing up the Gunther Motel Apartments with a propane bomb, and his bail was set at only $25,000.
This May 10th arrest spelled certain doom for Nate’s second mayoral run. With the 2021 filing deadline approaching in June, he was forced to abandon his campaign. Since cities can actually cancel elections if no challengers emerge, Choteau did not hold a mayoral election in 2021 and Chris Hindoien was elected by acclamation.
REBUTTING THE CHARGES
Taken individually, the law enforcement reports characterize Nathan White as an unhinged lunatic. But when observed together as a whole, the evidence begins to resemble something else. Of the twelve total charges levied against Nate, half of them were for something called “disorderly conduct”.
First and foremost, the disorderly conduct statute is not only an “unconstitutionally vague” allegation, but one that was actually born from a joke question on a final exam meant to help Missoula’s law students identify unconstitutional language. Whether the utterance of strange and unusual noises can be construed as unlawful seems uncompromisingly subjective. And Montana case law appears to have settled this debate in 1985 with Whitefish v. O’Shaughnessy:
“Many courts, including the United States Supreme Court, have held that an act constitutes a disturbance of the peace or breach of the peace only if it poses an immediate threat of violence or would tend to provoke violence from others. … The primary concern here is whether the statutes and ordinances are unconstitutionally vague… Also … whether the statutes and ordinances were used or could be used as a vehicle to punish or prohibit protected free speech or chill the right of free speech.”
~City of Whitefish v. O’Shaughnessy (1985) 216 Mont. 433, 704 P.2d 1021]
All six disorderly charges would later be dismissed by the court. In fact, all twelve of Nate’s charges were dismissed over the following 18 months. His two counts of assault from the September exchange were dismissed. His criminal trespass from the annex building was dismissed, as was the charge of resisting arrest from that same day. And when push came to shove, both of the felony witness tampering charges were also dismissed.
As Nate told the deputies during his booking in May, “It ain’t normal to get a witness tampering ticket for honking a horn. It’s abnormal!”
Deputy Kraft certainly had reasons to personally dislike Mr. White on account of the fact that Nate often spoke at public meetings about the “corporal punishment of teenage girls” that occurred at Kraft’s direction. But more critically, Nate publicly raised awareness of the fact that Teton County Sheriff’s Deputy Jeff Kraft’s marriage to City/County Attorney Jennifer Stutz constituted an ongoing conflict of interest.
Prosecutors fraternizing with law enforcement officers isn’t a new phenomenon in the State of Montana, but Stutz’s employment agreement for Choteau City Attorney, effective 01 July 2020, nonetheless contains a clause that requires she recuse herself whenever any case involves “a member of Jen Stutz’s immediate family.” Nate had announced this fact at the candidates forum in 2019 and at several other public gatherings as well.
In fact, when the City renewed Stutz’s contract in the summer of 2020, Nathan asked if she would be required to recuse herself from any cases that involved conflicts of interest. As reported by the Acantha:
In cases where Stutz has a conflict of interest, the contract stipulates that she will seek substitute counsel, including Teton County Attorney Joe Coble for criminal matters.
Beyond that, it is not illegal for citizens to raise grievances with public officials. In fact, public officials are required to bear public criticism so long as the First Amendment exists and there’s not a damn thing they’re supposed to be able to do about it. Popular culture’s recent obsession with the false notion of “political civility” is nothing more than a transparent means of attempting to control speech.
YEARS PASS
Nate and his wife eventually sold their Choteau home in 2022 and moved to an adjacent county to raise horses. As the months passed the deferred criminal charges were all eventually dismissed. With his name finally cleared, Nate publicly addressed his disappearance from political life for the first time in the summer of 2024 at a Choteau city council meeting on 18 June. It was the first time Nate had confronted Mayor Hindoien since his arrest three years earlier.
“I have only recently begun to speak publicly again after my wife and I suffered substantial damages. … False claims were made by the city to law enforcement who claimed that I had no reason to be in the City office because I did not even live in Choteau or pay city taxes. I did pay city taxes and the Mayor knew that I lived in Choteau. What transpired was nothing short of a conspiracy to violate my civil rights. … Rather than recognizing what was a blatant conflict of interest outlined in her employment agreement and immediately seeking a substitute counsel, the city attorney sought to retaliate against me instead.…They interfered in your 2021 election.”
TROUBLE IN PARADISE
Nate White wasn’t the only Choteau local who felt antagonized by Mayor Hindoien. After several firefighters quit the Choteau Volunteer Fire Department in the autumn of 2024 there was a definite tipping point of resentment. Months of infighting among fire department personnel led to the mayor’s involvement which worsened organizational squabbles. Several firefighters stated they felt “bullied” by the mayor, especially after receiving letters of intent from the mayor’s office demanding their compliance to a strict set of rules.
At the 17 December 2024 Choteau City Council meeting Fire Warden Ben Rhodes stood up and said:
“These guys are volunteers. Remember that. They are not a paid department. If you treat them like a paid department you’re going to lose them. … So if we are aren’t involved in retaliation, what do you call these pieces of paper that showed up after the fact that eleven members resigned? I would call that retaliation from somebody. … Please have your mayor back off of these guys and let them do their job.”
Then the mayor sent a list of the names of the firefighters who quit to the newspaper but forgot to redact their personal information from the message.
Choteau local Edward Bumgarner told the Outer Limits: “[Hindoien] really screwed up royal on how he handled firemen’s personal information. He sent the unredacted personal information, whether it was bank account numbers, social security numbers, birth dates or whatever they had on file with the city that is absolutely personal and is protected. Hindoien sent it all to the Choteau Acantha to Melody Martinsen on an unsecured Email. And you cannot do that. That is a felony. … Why he would send it to her is beyond me. There’s a lot of people up there scratching their heads wondering why he did that. But there are a whole lot of firemen who are really pissed.”
In the wake of this multifaceted battle with the fire department, the Choteau Acantha’s building burned in an early-morning irony on 07 January 2025. The Missoulian reported that “a Montana state fire marshal was en route to determine how the fire started”:
“The Choteau Volunteer Fire Department responded at 2:34 a.m. Jan. 7 to a structure fire at the weekly newspaper’s office at 216 First Ave. N., editor Melody Martinsen said in a posting on the newspaper’s website.”
Mayoral squabbles with fire departments have become a hot issue in 2025, but the coincidences surrounding this fire were so numerous and troublesome that the town began to buzz with rumors about what happened that night. Recognizing the optics for what they were, Fire Marshal Ben Rhodes sought an outside investigation from objective third parties. Deputy State Fire Marshal Doug Ulsh and the Teton County Sheriff’s Office stepped in and determined that the fire was indeed accidental, announcing that it was caused by a faulty space heater.
But the fire department wasn’t the only factor that contributed to this winter of discontent. The Sheriff’s Office was also experiencing significant problems with the mayor.
Choteau dissolved its police department in 1998 and has since farmed out law enforcement to the Teton County Sheriff’s Office. Because Choteau is the seat of Teton County, this relationship seems to make sense but has become increasingly volatile in recent months with questions concerning who should pay for it. Mayor Hindoien frequently reasoned that the sheriff’s office was billing the City for services they never ordered. The sheriff’s office says its not being compensated for services performed within the city limits. Locked in a stalemate, the mayor purportedly stonewalled the sheriff.
Van Setten summed it up by saying, “Choteau was paying 26% [of the sheriff’s budget] with the contract, and they were using up 56% of our time and energy and resources.” Van Setten says that the increased costs are partially due to inflationary reasons as well as an increase in internet crime.
Hindoien’s alleged refusal to renew the City’s contract with the Teton County Sheriff’s Office resulted in its expiration last September, which technically left Choteau without any law enforcement to the chagrin of many locals. The sheriff affirmed that he wouldn’t let Choteau go to the wolves over budget issues. But when it was time to renegotiate the contract, Mayor Hindoien appears to have given Sheriff Van Setten the cold shoulder. As reported by the Acantha:
VanSetten [sic] said the city told him at the June 27 meeting that it would provide him with a list of city ordinances that it would need the Sheriff’s Office to enforce under a new contract, and the city did not do that. He accused the city of failing to negotiate in good faith. … He said Choteau is receiving the lion’s share of law enforcement services, has become accustomed to that and expects more than he can provide based on the old contract.
The Sheriff’s office took most the blame, with Mayor Hindoien characterizing the expiration of the annual contract as “retaliation”:
Hindoien said he thought the county terminated the contract rather than renegotiating because of his actions in regard to the disgruntled neighbor situation. “It’s a retaliation,” he said, adding, “What the commissioners did, what Keith VanSetten [sic] did, what Joe Coble did, is they told the residents of Choteau that they don’t matter. The citizens of Choteau are still residents of Teton County and they are entitled to the same services as all residents of the county.”
In the middle of this multifaceted public relations circus, Nate returned to the city council one last time on 17 December 2024:
“I’m hearing from a City Council member, well we just have to get the mayor out of this process, and really because he’s so toxic. … Some of these issues are coming up with the firefighters and you’re saying ‘well, we didn’t have any hand in this.’ I’m not saying that you’re lying, but do something about it. Remove him from office.”
Nate offered up a way to accomplish such a task:
“When [it is said that] the city council can’t do anything about [the mayor] because they’re a legislative branch, that is untrue. If you look at 7-4-4111 that’s MCA code, determination of vacancy in municipal office, this would be a reason … it says the incumbent’s conviction of a felony or of any offense involving moral turpitude or violation of official duties; the video I have demonstrates moral turpitude. It demonstrates the mayor conspiring against me; conspiring to violate my civil rights.”
THE PETITION TO RECALL MAYOR HINDOIEN
In the beginning of 2025, an outraged local named Edward Bumgarner stepped up and tried something that hadn’t been attempted in Choteau before.
In an exclusive interview last month, Bumgarner told the Outer Limits about how he had endured years of litigation with the City and Mayor Hindoien over trees on his property and the maintenance of Choteau’s urban forest. Bumgarner says that Choteau City officials repeatedly scheduled meetings without informing the citizens directly affected by their decisions. And when the City decided to make dramatic alterations to Bumgarner’s property during meetings he couldn’t attend, he fought back and sued the City of Choteau for their failure to follow the law. When the City further reneged on its responsibilities, Bumgarner resorted to filing a writ of mandamus and brought the issue before the Montana Supreme Court.
Bumgarner also told us that Mayor Hindoien instructed him to purchase an $2 million dollar insurance policy to cover the City in case somebody fell on his driveway, because it was built over they City’s sidewalk right of way. Since Chris Hindoien is the marketing coordinator for Rocky Mountain Insurance Services, an “independent producer for” Volunteer Fireman’s Insurance Services (VFIS), this proposed policy seemed suspicious to Ed:
“So then he wanted me to buy this indemnity policy. … I went to three different big insurance companies. They all looked at me with crossed eyes and said, “You can’t do that. We’ve never heard of that. I don’t think that’s possible.” … I opened up the Montana Code Annotated… It says that the only one who can buy an indemnity policy is an employee of the municipality. Well, Hindoien could buy it. I couldn’t though because I wasn’t an employee.”
Bumgarner described the ordeal as “fraud to the Nth degree. … He misrepresented himself and his office,” says Ed. “Because what he tried to make me do was a fraudulent move. … The whole issue of trying to get me to do something fraudulently I think is something that needs to be known.”
After years of litigation, the two-pronged scandal with the Sheriff’s Office and the Fire Department compelled Bumgarner to file a petition to recall the mayor.
“So, I began to work on a petition to recall,” says Bumgarner. “And to recall an elected official, I mean the requirements of the law to do that are almost mind boggling. I slogged through them and I had to redo it about five times. … But I finally got the thing done. And it had been approved by the County Attorney, so it was good to go. … Well the paper got a hold of it. And the paper then called Hindoien and told him there was a recall petition that was being circulated. And that’s when he came in and gave his resignation, the next Tuesday at the council meeting, and said he’s going to step down.”
Jim Anderson confirms the chronology. “The day the county attorney declared that petition legal, Hindoien quit.”
MARCH FORTH, MAYOR HINDOIEN
Selling his house and resigning his office, Chris Hindoien says he plans to relocate to Helena where his older brother Jeff is the chief legal council for Montana Fish and Wildlife. In describing why he left office, Chris proclaimed that, “I cannot continue to fight full-time battles in a part-time position.”
According to KRTV:
Hindoein says, “When I came on, I didn’t come on to be adored, but I also didn’t come on thinking that people I considered to be friends would all of a sudden become enemies.”… Rather than go through the recall process, Hindoien submitted his resignation to the city council on Tuesday night, effective March 4th.
The final year of Hindoien’s term is to be carried out by City Council President Stewart Merja who has served the City of Choteau for the past 15 years on the council. At his last meeting as Mayor of Choteau, Chris Hindoien made his final comments before resigning:
“As I wrap it up, it’s been 1,889 days. It’s been a blast. And I would do it again in a heartbeat. The cost of serving, as you guys all know, takes its toll. And if I was younger and dumber I’d probably stick around.” Chris’s eyes began to well with tears.
Turning to interim mayor Stewart Merja, Hindoien said, “ You will be fine, Stewart. Godspeed as you take over tomorrow morning. Lead with your heart. Don’t do what others would do – do what you’re going to do. Roll with the flow.” Hindoien closed by saying, “I’m going to leave this job very proud of the fact that I came in here to support and uphold the constitution of Montana and the United States and the laws of the State of Montana.”
In the month since Hindoien’s resignation, negotiations with the sheriff’s office have resumed and the fire department has begun recovering its numbers.
“The Choteau Fire Department is growing and is very strong now,” reports Fire Marshal Rhodes. He says that some of the firemen who quit ended up returning to the department after the mayor’s departure. “Once we got rid of a few bad apples things are actually working out.”
FINDING AN HONEST POLITICIAN IS LIKE TRYING TO MILK A BULL
Similar to the case of Brandon Bryant and the terrorism allegations waged against him by Missoula officials in 2020, Nate White’s situation stands as another case of protected political speech coming under attack in the state of Montana. It seems perfectly obvious that Choteau officials knowingly applied a persistent lawfare strategy of attrition to prevent an inconvenient dialogue from occurring at a time when authorities the world over prioritized mask mandates and social distancing protocols as an explicit means of silencing critics of the state. The irrational health edicts of the Covidian Cancel Cult have not aged well but hysteria and fear prevailed over logic and reason nonetheless.
Though it’s always existed to one degree or another, the electoral stunt known as Ballot Cleansing became a more overt strategy in recent years, especially as the 2024 elections were concerned. After years of lawfare were waged against Donald Trump, dozens of officials threatened to weaponize a creative interpretation of the 14th Amendment to prohibit him from setting foot inside the Oval Office for a second term. Then the cancel cult sought the disqualification of anyone deemed an “insurrectionist” including 126 members of Congress. There are many ways to go about it but the object is always the same: prevent the challenger from winning by any means available.
Nathan White could have arguably navigated the lawfare efforts against him differently. But it also seems obvious that his frustrations were deliberately weaponized against him and then greatly exaggerated on paper to maximize the legal damage. And as Nate learned firsthand, the most effective lawfare campaigns exploit the psychological warfare tactic of overwhelming the target with as many frivolous filings as possible to break the will of their opponents and induce surrender. White asserts that the conspiracy to violate his civil rights constituted malicious prosecution, abuse of process and selective enforcement. In this case, the provocation efforts could also be interpreted as a premeditated collusion to commit election interference.
With Hindoien stepping down ten months before the end of his term, 2025 is once again an election year for the position of Choteau’s Mayor. Jim Anderson tells us, “I think Nate could easily win an election at this point.”
But Nate doesn’t live in the city limits anymore and doesn’t plan on going back. After selling his Choteau home in 2022 he has spent his days on horseback among the animals on his ranch.
“I can barely walk down the street without running into someone that’s saying, hey would you move back here and run for mayor?” Nate tells us, “No, I’m not going to do that.”
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