BY: DARRELL EHRLICK – JUNE 20, 2024 5:35 PM
The Dawson County Courthouse in Glendive, Montana (Photo by Darrell Ehrlick of the Daily Montanan).
Jeremy L. Swisher, the Glendive Chief of Police, is facing three felony charges for hunting on Montana tribal lands without a license and tampering with witnesses, after the Montana Attorney General’s Office say he made up a story about hunting, then changed it, urging other law enforcement officers to lie to investigators.
The case stems from before Swisher arrived in Glendive as police chief. Previously, he was a law enforcement agent in Louisiana who said he was interested in the job because of the hunting and fishing he’d done here. But a search of state databases shows he had not obtained any licenses, according to court documents filed in Dawson County Court.
Requests for comment from Swisher from the Daily Montanan went unanswered.
Investigators with several state agencies learned that Swisher had allegedly bragged to others about three mule deer mounts he had, and that he didn’t need a license to hunt on Montana tribal lands so long as he was hunting with a tribal member. He told a Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks investigator that he had hunted on the Fort Peck Reservation for the preceding two years, and claimed that a tribal game warden had told him he didn’t need a license to hunt on the Fort Peck Reservation, according to court documents.
The FWP investigator contacted the tribal authorities, but learned that they do not issue deer licenses to non-members.
When the same investigator interviewed Swisher a month later, the police chief confirmed that he knew that non-tribal members could not hunt on the reservation, but he said he could because he was invited by a trial member. Swisher told the investigators that he had confirmed the fact with several Montana game wardens and a “federal guy,” but refused to name them.
A month after the initial conversation with Swisher, investigators said that he put up the mule deer mounts in his office at the Glendive Police Station. The FWP investigator obtained a search warrant to seize the mounts, and informed Dawson County Sheriff Ross Canen about the warrant. Canen told investigators that Swisher had told him and other law enforcement officers that he had killed the deer on the Fort Peck Reservation, according to the lawsuit. A search of tribal records for 2020-2021 shows that Swisher obtained no conservation tags.
During a later interview with investigators, Swisher said that he had been worried about transporting the deer back to Louisiana because of the threat of chronic wasting disease, but that he had obtained permission from a tribal game warden, whose name Swisher did not remember.
After the interview and after authorities had seized the mounts, they began interviewing other people associated with Swisher and the Fort Peck Reservation. Authorities obtained Swisher’s cell phone records, which show several calls to different people associated with the case.
According to court records, they learned that Swisher had called several people to pressure them into telling different stories about the deer hunting. In several cases, Swisher had called different law enforcement agents to discourage them from talking, saying the case stemmed from a political dispute he was having with the mayor and city council.
One of the people involved in the case, Greg Brugh, Jr., originally told investigators in 2023, shortly after the European-style mounts were seized, that he had shot the bucks in 2017 and given Swisher the antlers.
“Brugh could not provide an explanation about why the defendant would be telling people he shot the deer when he was only gifted them,” the court documents said.
Brugh offered to provide an emailed document showing that he was authorized to hunt on the Fort Peck Reservation, but that was proof was never offered, court documents state.
Investigators also spoke with Lenny Boxer, who also said that he gifted Swisher four deer racks, three mule deer and one whitetail in exchange for a knife and “taking him out.”
Swisher allegedly was a groomsman in Brugh’s wedding as was Boxer, according to court documents.
But, after FWP investigators had spoken with Swisher and seized the property, further investigation shows that the chief of police had asked Robert Magnan, the director of the fish and wildlife for the Fort Peck tribes, for a letter that said he was gifted the antlers from a tribal member.
“Director Magnan explained to the defendant that tribal members were not allowed to gift antlers to non-tribal members, and wanted to know who the tribal member supposedly was who gifted the antlers to the defendant,” the court document said. “(Swisher) initially refused because he ‘didn’t want to get him in trouble.’”
A search warrant for Boxer’s email revealed that just three days after being interviewed by Montana FWP, Boxer deleted nearly 500 photos, but three photos that remained show Swisher posing with the mule deer bucks in question on Dec. 1 and 2, 2021. Photos also revealed a lieutenant who works as a deputy sheriff in Louisiana participating in the hunts.
Montana authorities working with Louisiana game officials were able to obtain more information, including that Swisher had contacted authorities there about processing game taken in Montana.
Lt. Wendel Vaughn said that Swisher had contacted him in 2017 to ask about hunting without a license and transporting game back.
“Lt. Vaughn obtained records from Unruh Meat Processing in Deridder, Louisiana, that indicate (Swisher) brought mule deer meat to them in 2017, 2020, and 2022,” the court documents said. “There was no letter from any tribe in the records obtained, nor was there any associated tag numbers with the defendant’s orders.”
Montana authorities accuse Swisher of trying to convince others related to the case to cover up the story, as well as illegally transporting untagged, undocumented game across state lines.
“(Swisher) took steps to cover up his illegal behavior, by manufacturing a completely different (albeit equally illegal) justification for his possession of the mule deer bucks. Such conduct, if proven to be true, demonstrates the defendant either relied on what his buddies were telling him and did not check it, or knew what he was doing was illegal and figured he would not get caught,” the charging documents said. “Instead of owning up to a perhaps understandable misapprehension of the law, the defendant allegedly doubled down and got his buddies to cover for him by making up a different story.”
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