Court orders Montana resort founder Tim Blixeth freed from jail

HELENA, Mont. – A federal appeals court on Wednesday ordered the release of the founder of a Montana club for the ultrarich, who has spent the last 14 months in jail for failing to account for the money from the sale of a resort in Mexico.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted Yellowstone Club founder Tim Blixseth’s emergency motion for release pending his appeal. The two judges who wrote the order, Alex Kozinski and Richard Paez, did not explain their decision. It was not immediately clear when Blixseth would be released.

Blixseth’s attorneys had tried and failed multiple times before Wednesday to free him from the Cascade County Detention Center, where U.S. District Judge Sam Haddon sent him in April 2015 on a civil contempt order.

Haddon jailed Blixseth for not revealing what happened to millions of dollars from the sale of the resort in Mexico, which was made during the Montana mountain resort’s bankruptcy proceedings.

Blixseth’s attorneys have said he has done everything he can to cooperate with the judge’s orders.

“Mr. Blixseth’s continued incarceration can only be viewed as punishment, for which he has been afforded no due process protections,” his attorney, Becky James, said in the most recent appeal.

Neither James nor Kevin Barrett, the attorney for the Yellowstone Club’s creditors, immediately returned calls for comment.

Courts have previously ruled that Blixseth fraudulently transferred a $286 million loan to the club for his personal use. The Yellowstone Club’s creditors are seeking more than $250 million from Blixseth and have argued for him to remain incarcerated.

The private ski and golf resort, founded by Blixseth and his ex-wife, emerged from bankruptcy under new ownership in 2009.

Blixseth originally bought the Mexican resort known as Tamarindo for $40 million. He sold it in 2011 for $13 million in violation of a bankruptcy judge’s order not to sell assets while the Yellowstone Club bankruptcy case was pending.

The proceeds from its sale are gone, his attorneys have said.