Montana
How four different lawyers could claim that they're the true Roosevelt County Attorney – Daily Montanan
Four attorneys believe they may be the rightful Roosevelt County Attorney.
And it may be that only the 2024 election will answer the question of who is actually the county attorney.
It could be the person who won the last election for the office, lost the job when a judge agreed that he didn’t meet the qualifications of Montana law, and is now suing the county for back pay.
Or it could be the attorney who has been handling most of the litigation full time for the eastern Montana county, who said he’s filing paperwork to run in the 2024 election.
Or it could be the attorney from Fergus County who was hired by the commissioners and has said she’ll start on Feb. 20.
Or it could be the interim county attorney who has had a number disputes with the county commissioners, is being accused of botching a murder trial when she was the county attorney in Richland County, and is currently working in Utah.
The case of who is the Roosevelt County attorney has been at the heart of three court cases, and is spider’s web of accusations, case law and politics.
It started with a newspaper lawsuit
The turnover in the Roosevelt County Attorney’s Office began when Northern Plains Independent Publisher Darla Downs filed a lawsuit challenging former Roosevelt County Attorney Frank Piocos’ eligibility for the post.
Piocos had previously served as a deputy county attorney and was elected to the county attorney position after then-county attorney Austin Knudsen successfully ran for Montana Attorney General.
Downs proved to a district court judge that Piocos didn’t maintain a residence in the county, a requirement of the position by state statute, and that because he didn’t meet the eligibility requirements, his election should be overturned.
The case wound its way to the Montana Supreme Court, which agreed with district court Judge Katherine Bidegaray that Piocos was ineligible.
That decision left Roosevelt County with a gaping hole in its legal department, and the three county commissioners looked for different options, eventually settling on former Richland County Attorney and Roosevelt County native Janet Christoffersen.
Meanwhile, Piocos is suing the county for back pay and attorney’s fees, arguing that he should be reinstated, saying that neither the state’s Supreme Court, nor the original decision from Bidegaray’s nor Montana law, provides a way to remove a person from office.
Interim county attorney
The commissioners appointed Christoffersen. She is currently at the center of an appeals case at the Montana Supreme Court that accuses her of withholding evidence that may have exonerated a person convicted of homicide, although that case doesn’t appear to have factored into any of the decisions by the Roosevelt County Commissioners.
But just several months into her tenure, the commissioners attempted to replace Christoffersen, saying that they had originally agreed to hire her for a four-month interim contract — to serve until they found someone more permanent. Christoffersen said that four months was an arbitrary period the commissioners threw out, giving her time to decide if the position was right.
She was the Richland County Attorney from 2018 to 2022, when she decided not to run for re-election. She had previously served as a deputy county attorney there and was in private practice for 10 years. Prior to that, she had run for a state district court judge against Bidegaray. Previous reporting by the Sidney Herald said she grew up on a ranch near Froid.
However, when the county commissioners attempted to remove and replace Christoffersen after that four-month interim, she filed a lawsuit against Roosevelt County, challenging whether the commissioners had the right to remove her.
In a lawsuit that played out in September and October, Roosevelt County District Court Judge Michael Moses said that state law allows the county commissioners to appoint a county attorney if one is removed or leaves office, but it only allows them to appoint an attorney who would serve until the next election, not a series of interim attorneys. That effectively handed the position back to Christoffersen, who continued doing work for the county.
However, during the same time, she also accepted a job as a deputy county attorney in Utah, according to court filings, raising the ire of the county commissioners, as well as questions as to whether she was fulfilling her responsibilities.
County commissioners make changes
The Roosevelt County Commissioners then decided to keep her position, in line with Moses’ ruling, but made structural changes. They made the county attorney a part-time position and changed the deputy county attorney’s role from part-time to full-time. Currently, Thomas Bleicher is the deputy county attorney, working full-time. Roosevelt County Commissioners also bumped the deputy county attorney pay to be 85% of the county attorney’s $119,215 salary.
Christoffersen’s legal battle against Roosevelt County continues, with her saying in court filings that commissioners have created a hostile work environment and retaliation.
In his ruling granting a preliminary injunction against the Roosevelt County Commissioners, Moses said that Christoffersen was qualified to be appointed as county attorney, and that she holds the office until either a vacancy or the next election. He said that state law did not allow the commissioners the power to remove a qualified attorney whom they chose to appoint.
Yet earlier this month, the Roosevelt County Commissioners decided to hire a full-time county attorney and selected Theresa Diekhans of Fergus County.
Deputy County Attorney Bleicher voiced concerns about that process, saying that he was cut off from asking more questions during the interview process with Diekhans, according to reporting from the Northern Plains Independent. Meanwhile, Christoffersen objected, saying that proper public notice wasn’t given for the interviews, and said that she was contemplating running for county attorney during the upcoming election in 2024.
Bleicher also confirmed that he had picked up paperwork so that he could run for the position as well.
At the meeting, according to the reports from the Northern Plains Independent, Roosevelt County Commissioner Gary Macdonald said, “We went from the frying pan to the fire.”
Montana
Montana Lottery Mega Millions, Big Sky Bonus results for June 23, 2026
The Montana Lottery offers multiple draw games for those aiming to win big.
Here’s a look at June 23, 2026, results for each game:
Winning Mega Millions numbers from June 23 drawing
48-51-60-63-66, Mega Ball: 20
Check Mega Millions payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Big Sky Bonus numbers from June 23 drawing
06-21-22-31, Bonus: 13
Check Big Sky Bonus payouts and previous drawings here.
Feeling lucky? Explore the latest lottery news & results
When are the Montana Lottery drawings held?
- Powerball: 8:59 p.m. MT on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday.
- Mega Millions: 9 p.m. MT on Tuesday and Friday.
- Lucky For Life: 8:38 p.m. MT daily.
- Lotto America: 9 p.m. MT on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.
- Big Sky Bonus: 7:30 p.m. MT daily.
- Powerball Double Play: 8:59 p.m. MT on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday.
- Montana Cash: 8 p.m. MT on Wednesday and Saturday.
- Millionaire for Life: 9:15 p.m. MT daily.
Missed a draw? Peek at the past week’s winning numbers.
This results page was generated automatically using information from TinBu and a template written and reviewed by a Great Falls Tribune editor. You can send feedback using this form.
Montana
Man Driving Giant Banana Gets Pulled Over in Montana
We cover lots of hard news here at The Drive. Y’know, the stuff that keeps you updated on the automotive industry and enthusiast scene. Other times, we don’t. Other times, we write silly car-related stuff because it’s fun. This is one of those times. A giant banana recently got pulled over in Montana, and as the Cowboy State Daily put it, it wasn’t its first time.
According to the Montana State Police, the giant banana car and its driver, Steve Braithwaite, were pulled over near Billings because part of the license plate was blocked. He did not receive a ticket. Also, the plate reads “SPLIT.”
“We’ve stopped speeders, distracted drivers, and even a few unusual vehicles… but this one definitely stands out.
The Big Banana Car was stopped cruising near Billings today. While it may be apPEALing, traffic laws still apply to fruit. 😎 🍌
Safe travels, Montana,” said the Montana State Police’s Facebook page.
According to the report, Braithwaite has been pulled over hundreds of times over the decade he’s been driving his banana car across the country. In fact, he believes that during the first few years he had the thing, he was one of the most frequently pulled-over men in America.
“Driving around in a banana and having all these people, all these smiles and waves, affects me. It actually does something fantastic,” he told the outlet.
He even claims to have been pulled over once for “peeling out,” which was, of course, a joke.
Another report claims that Braithwaite began working on the fiberglass banana in 2008 and finished it in 2011. It’s based on a 1993 Ford F-150 and is a bout 23 feet from tip to tip.
Keep on keepin’ on, Steve.
Got a tip? Email us at tips@thedrive.com
Montana
The Latest ‘Sustained Yield’ Scam Will Devastate Montana’s National Forests
Log landing, western Montana. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.
Way back in 1995 Bob Brown, the Republican president of the Montana Senate, called me into his office.
He had co-sponsored a bill with a pro-logging Missoula Democrat to establish a “sustained yield” level of logging on Montana’s state trust lands – and he was worried it wasn’t working out the way he hoped.
Bob was right to be worried then and Montanans are right to be worried now because Trump’s Forest Service Chief and former timber industry lobbyist Tom Schultz, has just unleashed the “sustained yield” scam on Montana’s National Forests.
To appreciate Brown’s concerns, it’s important to understand that the 1995 Montana legislature had two-thirds Republican majorities in the House and Senate and Republican Marc Racicot in the Governor’s Office.
Those majorities put Montana’s environment in the cross-hairs with a raft of industry-friendly deregulatory bills. That included the timber industry, which was losing the “timber wars” in large part because Plum Creek Timber, one of the largest private forest landowners in the West, had decided to “liquidate” its “timber assets” – also known as “forests.”
That decision resulted in massive clearcuts since there were virtually no regulations on logging private land. Plum Creek scalped the forests of northwest Montana, including the lands around Bob’s home in Whitefish, leaving barren, knapweed infested stumpfields that remain to this day. His goal was to protect the lands around the trout streams he’d fished growing up and hoped the bill would do that.
It was the closing weeks of the session and Bob wanted to know if it was possible to reduce the environmental impacts of his bill since it had been heavily amended to favor extraction, not “sustained yield.” My advice was to let the bill die because he didn’t have the votes to remove the amendments the timber industry lobbyists stuck on the bill. But he didn’t take that advice, the bill passed, and the logging level for Montana’s state forests was set at 52 to 55 million board feet per year.
Two years later, Tom Schultz went to work for Montana’s Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, heading the trust lands timber division and earning the sobriquet “Chainsaw Tom” for his pro-logging zeal. Like the stumpfields, his dedication to the timber industry remains to this day – only now he’s in charge of the United States Forest Service and bringing chainsaws to millions of acres of our remaining intact forests.
If you believe that “sustained yield” is supposed to be a carefully calculated determination of how many millions of board feet of timber can be logged every year on a sustainable basis that means limiting logging to the pace at which the forests can regrow – regardless of the demands of the rapacious timber industry.
In the “old days” loggers liked to refer to forests as “100 year gardens.” But of course forests aren’t gardens, they’re complex ecosystems – and the timber industry doesn’t wait a century for forests to regrow.
It’s unlikely that quaint misnomer is even applicable in today’s climate with hotter, longer summers, minimal snowpack, and extreme drought. Yet, Montana’s “sustained yield” is now nearly 10 million board feet a year higher than when Brown’s bill passed, defying logic and science and justifying his concerns from 30 years ago.
“Chainsaw Tom” Schultz has now reappeared and demands that 350-500 million board feet of Montana’s national forests be logged over 10 years. Schultz’s timber industry lobbyist background offers a clue as to where that “sustainable yield” number came from — and the reason we will likely be left with nothing but stumpfields and knapweed from his “landscape scale” logging of our remaining intact forests.
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