Custer Battlefield Museum Files Lawsuit Against the United States In U.S. Federal Court of Claims

After years of harassment, false allegations, and wrongful persecution, Christopher Kortlander, founding director of the Custer Battlefield Museum, and the businesses he operates at Garryowen, Montana, have filed a multimillion dollar lawsuit in the U.S. Federal Court of Claims in Washington DC against the United States (1:11-cv-00601-MBH Kortlander et al v. USA). The lawsuit was filed in response to the actions of various law enforcement agents of the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Department of the Interior, and the United States. Kortlander states that the purpose of the suit is to recover from the damages caused by years of malicious prosecution by the many federal agencies involved in two raids on his businesses and private residence. Even worse than the recently publicized federal harassment of Gibson Guitar Corp., Kortlander alleges that numerous federal agents from several agencies conducted an unremitting witch hunt against him, dating back to 1996. At that time, Kortlander dated the ex-wife of a BLM Special Agent who used his federal law enforcement authority to spy on the comings and goings of his ex-wife and Kortlander. Following Kortlander's report of harassment, the agent was reassigned out of the BLM and his law enforcement undercover team was disbanded. Since then, Kortlander says he has been targeted by federal law enforcement agents, with the intent of destroying his reputation as a dealer in historical artifacts, and forcing him to close the businesses he owns and operates in Garryowen, Montana, which includes the Custer Battlefield Museum that he founded in 1995. Said Kortlander, "Despite repeated raids on my home and my businesses, and the destruction of my personal reputation, I had done nothing wrong, and no criminal charges were ever filed against me," although, Kortlander says, the threat of impending multiple federal felony indictments were held over his head for nearly five years. "I'm still trying to force the government to return all the seized items," he added. "I'm not the only person this has happened to," Kortlander continued. "For every case like mine that is mentioned in the media, there are many more that never get noticed. Federal agents can and have destroyed the lives of many law-abiding citizens. If you run afoul of the administration bureaucracy, you can be targeted for financial ruin and public humiliation without the benefit of the Constitutional protections which a defendant enjoys when a case is filed for prosecution in the judicial branch of government. I'm determined to bring this misuse of federal power and taxpayer dollars into the light of day."...Press Release