Judge Refuses Suit By Freeman Banned From Counseling Cohort

A judge has thrown out the $13 million lawsuit that anti-government activist William David Sullivan Jr. filed against officials who barred him from helping a fellow freeman who was jailed on criminal charges.

Sullivan sued the state of Montana, Gallatin County and 11 individuals in March 1996 after he was not allowed to provide counsel to Steven McNeil or to visit him in jail.

The suit named then-County Attorney Mike Salvagni, current County Attorney Marty Lambert, Justice of the Peace Gordon Smith, District Judge Larry Moran and sheriff’s Lt. Jim Cashell, the county jailer.

District Judge James Purcell of Butte ruled on Sept. 4 that, under state law, defendants don’t have the right to be represented by someone not licensed as an attorney. Consequently, Sullivan was also not allowed to meet with McNeil in jail during nonvisiting hours as an attorney would be.

And because his prior attempts to enter the jail were disruptive, Purcell ruled, the jailers were entitled to deny Sullivan entrance even during visiting hours.

Sullivan, 43, filed the suit from the ranch compound outside Jordan where some two dozen Montana freemen were holed up and surrounded by FBI agents.

Sullivan was sentenced Wednesday to two days in jail for disrupting McNeil’s District Court trial last April by bleating like a sheep at the jurors who had convicted McNeil of passing a worthless freeman check - to pay a court fine.

Bleating at McNeil’s jurors brought McNeil a $100 fine and a day in jail from District Judge Nels Swandal, who was trying the case. Sullivan was also charged with resisting arrest and disorderly conduct for scuffling with law officers in the courtroom.

He was convicted in Justice Court, served two days in jail and was fined $290.