ST. LOUIS — ӣƵ Sheriff Alfred Montgomery has been indicted on five new charges accusing him of tampering with and retaliating against witnesses in a federal investigation into the handcuffing of a ӣƵ jail official.
Montgomery demoted one employee and threatened to bar three others from working in the city courthouse, federal prosecutors say in an indictment unsealed Thursday.
The indictment, which accuses Montgomery of five new felonies in addition to a previous misdemeanor civil rights charge, outlines expletive-laden recorded phone calls in which Montgomery rails against people who he believed were cooperating with law enforcement.
ӣƵ city Sheriff Alfred Montgomery.
“I don’t have to take this (expletive),” Montgomery said. “I’m the (expletive) sheriff. I say it’s either done or it ain’t. I don’t have to tolerate this (expletive).”
People are also reading…
Federal prosecutors on Thursday asked that Montgomery be jailed pending trial. They said he committed the new crimes after a judge ordered him not to have contact with witnesses about the case.
“Being elected to office doesn’t give someone carte blanche to do what they want,” said prosecutor Christine Krug.
A judge placed Montgomery on house arrest.
The news marked a significant escalation of the case against Montgomery, who has pleaded not guilty. If convicted, he could face up to 61 years in prison, though federal sentencing guidelines would likely recommend a penalty much less than that. It also further complicates the young sheriff’s efforts to remain in office after nearly a year of nonstop controversy.
Montgomery, 28, is, at the same time, fighting a lawsuit from the Missouri Attorney General’s office seeking his ouster over the handcuffing incident. The same suit also accuses him of breaking the law by refusing to transport some city jail inmates and having a deputy pick his kids up from school.
He is also locked in another legal battle over a new city ordinance aimed at forcing him to transport those inmates and justify his office’s expenses to the city comptroller in the wake of headline-grabbing purchases of new uniforms, gold-plated badges, golf carts and a Chevrolet Tahoe take-home car.
Montgomery’s lawyer, Justin Gelfand, on Thursday maintained his client’s innocence, accusing prosecutors of rushing to charge. He said in at least one charge, prosecutors accused Montgomery of firing someone in retaliation for giving information to the feds when, in fact, she was fired after careful consideration from an employment committee chaired by former ӣƵ Circuit Judge David Mason, who now works as an attorney for the office.
“We believe that the truth is going to come out,” Gelfand said.
Montgomery himself posted a message on social media casting his situation as part of a noble struggle against oppression and urging residents to keep the faith.
“Think back to the great leaders of our past,” he said. “When Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested, he did not surrender to despair.”
“Together,” he said, “we will rise above this moment and reclaim our power.”
The handcuffing incident occurred in February when an inmate at the downtown City Justice Center said she had sexual encounters with a sheriff’s deputy. Montgomery went to the jail and said he wanted to see the detainee. Deputy jail director Tammy Ross repeatedly refused, and Montgomery ordered his deputies to handcuff her.
Montgomery’s office, unlike other sheriffs across the state, does not run the jail or perform general law enforcement duties. Instead, sheriff’s deputies transport prisoners to and from court, provide courthouse security and serve legal papers.
The FBI launched an investigation.
The indictment unsealed Thursday alleges Montgomery then began to punish deputies who he believed were cooperating with the FBI.
In March, it says, he tried to convince one of his lieutenants, referenced in court documents as W.H., to submit a report that lied about the reason for detaining Ross.
In May, multiple employees received subpoenas to testify before a federal grand jury, court records show.
In June, Montgomery demoted W.H., then promoted him back to lieutenant a couple months later.
On Sept. 5, in a recorded phone call, Montgomery admitted to demoting W.H. because he thought he’d participated in the handcuffing investigation — though new depositions from the attorney general’s lawsuit seeking to remove Montgomery from office showed W.H. hadn’t testified after all.
“(W.H.) ain’t have (expletive) to do with it,” Montgomery later said, according to court records. “We read the depositions.”
Later in the call, however, he referenced three other employees who testified before a federal grand jury.
“I’m sick of these snake (expletives),” Montgomery said.
On Sept. 6, Montgomery told three employees they weren’t allowed at the courthouse, though he later retracted that statement, records say.
Two days later, one of the employees was placed on leave for unspecified insubordination, but he was later allowed to return to work, court records show.
Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway could move as soon as this week to temporarily remove Montgomery from office as it seeks a permanent ouster. Previous requests for temporary removal have been rebuffed by a judge because Montgomery had not been charged with crimes deemed serious enough.
“This latest development emphasizes exactly why our quo warranto petition for his removal from office is both necessary and justified,” she said in a statement. “No one is above the law, especially those sworn to uphold it.”
Judge John Bodenhausen said Thursday he was seriously considering jailing Montgomery pending trial. The U.S. court’s pretrial services office said in a report that Montgomery had tested positive for marijuana in September, and he committed the felonies alleged in the indictment after Bodenhausen specifically warned him not to talk to witnesses about the case.
Bodenhausen set a hearing for Tuesday to more fully consider arguments about whether Montgomery should be jailed.
In the meantime, Bodenhausen said he would give Montgomery a break since he has shown up to court and isn’t a risk to flee. Montgomery was placed on GPS monitoring and can only leave home to seek emergency medical care, meet with his lawyers and go to court.
“If there’s even a whisper of a problem,” Bodenhausen said, “I will sign a warrant at two in the morning.”
After referencing a Post-Dispatch article about the sheriff's recent controversies, Alderman Michael Browning questions Sheriff Alfred Montgomery on budget requests. Video courtesy of the City of ӣƵ, edited by Jenna Jones.
