HELENA — Former Montana Senate President Sen. Jason Ellsworth, R-Hamilton, will face a criminal charge for official misconduct, in connection with the controversy over state contracts that upended the Montana Legislature’s 2025 session.
Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen’s office announced Thursday that prosecutors had filed a single misdemeanor charge against Ellsworth in state district court in Helena. It comes ten months after lawmakers and the Legislative Audit Division referred investigations into Ellsworth’s conduct to Knudsen’s department.
While Ellsworth was serving as Senate president in December 2024, he signed off on a $170,000 contract with a former business associate, to track a series of judicial reform bills proposed before the session. After Sen. Matt Regier, R-Kalispell, replaced Ellsworth as president, he asked LAD to look into the contract. The division issued an initial report that said Ellsworth’s handling of the contract likely demonstrated “abuse and waste.”
In their court filing, Montana Department of Justice prosecutors echoed the legislative auditor’s initial finding that Ellsworth had not followed proper requirements when taking bids for a state contract, and that the original decision to split the $170,000 contract into two smaller contracts appeared to be a way to get around state procurement requirements.
The prosecutors also asked the court to suspend Ellsworth from office, pending a resolution of the case. State law says a judge may suspend an official without pay when they’re charged with official misconduct.
“The provision appears to be in the interest of protecting the public from public servants charged under this statute,” the prosecutors wrote. “Given the severity and nature of the alleged offense, the State believes official suspension from office pending final judgment is appropriate.”
If a suspended official is acquitted, they can return to office; if they're convicted, they will be permanently removed.
Ellsworth has just over one year remaining in his Senate term, but his authority in that position has already been significantly limited, after a supermajority of senators voted to punish him during the session. That disciplinary action, which came after a Senate ethics investigation, permanently barred Ellsworth from the Senate floor and removed him from all committee assignments.
Ellsworth has always denied wrongdoing, arguing that he was not trying to get around procurement requirements and that the claims against him were largely motivated by his political divisions with the new Senate leadership.
Read the full court filing from prosecutors:
