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Montana GOP Senate Nominee Kurt Alme Let Child Sex Offender Off The Hook 50%
By Jennifer Bendery0%
6/30/2026, 3:00:17 AM
BS Summary: This article contains 32 faulty reasoning types, including Negativity Bias, Framing Effect, and Anchoring Bias, with Biased Writer Voice as the most egregious example at 23.8% saturation with 190 hits. Analysis detected 1,643 faulty-reasoning hits from 797 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 49.8% and a BS Rank of 50% (11,151 of 21,887 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 50.90% of the article peer group.
WASHINGTON ― Montana Republican Senate nominee Kurt Alme, who previously served as his state’s U.S. attorney, cut a plea deal in 2020 that allowed a tribal police officer who sexually abused a 6-year-old girl to serve less than a year in prison and avoid being registered as a sex offender.
Alme, who has President Donald Trump’s backing in his bid for Senate, served as Montana’s U.S. attorney in two stints.
Trump appointed him both times; Alme served in the role from September 2017 through December 2020, and then again from March 2025 through March 2026.
Alme oversaw the case of Mychal Thomas Damon, who was indicted in June 2019 by a grand jury on one count of abusive sexual contact with an individual under 12, which carries a maximum punishment of a lifetime in prison, a $250,000 fine and no less than five years to a lifetime of supervised release.
The average sentence for this crime is less severe, but still significant: 62 months in prison, no fine and 143 months of supervised release, based on an analysis of 2025 data provided by the U.S.
Sentencing Commission.
Damon, 28, had admitted he touched the 6-year-old’s genitals.
But in February 2020, Alme’s office filed a plea deal in his case that reduced his charge to felony child abuse.
The changes in the plea deal raised the alleged age of the victim from below 12 to below 14, stripped out the language of sexual intent and moved the offense out of the federal sex crime framework, meaning Damon would no longer be required to register as a sex offender.
It jointly recommended Damon be sentenced to the time he’d already served of 324 days, and required only a sex offender evaluation.
Alme’s name appears on the bottom of the document, along with a signature by his assistant U.S. attorney, Cassady Adams.
Ten days later, Alme filed a sentencing memorandum that described Damon’s conduct, which included details of him touching the child’s vagina with skin-to-skin contact, and the adverse effect it had on her mental health.
Local reporting at the time said the victim had told a therapist “Mychal touched me” and hurt her by putting his fingers in her “hoo hoo.”
It’s not clear why Alme reduced the charges against Damon as significantly as he did.
During part of his tenure as U.S. attorney, his office declined 64% of sexual assault cases.
He conceded in a 2019 interview that this “is something that has to be worked on,” and noted that a lot of these cases are declined due to “weak or insufficient evidence.”
Asked what happened in Damon’s case, an Alme campaign spokesman on Thursday lashed out at unnamed Democrats for trying to make him look bad.
“Kurt’s liberal opponents are twisting the facts to manufacture a fake narrative that exploits crimes against women and children,” said Alme’s spokesperson.
“Department of Justice policy required defendants to plead to the most serious charge readily provable from the evidence.
Kurt strongly supported the Multi-Disciplinary Teams on our Native American reservations, led by his office, to support investigations of crimes against children and to support victims.”
His spokesperson also pushed back on the idea that Alme unreasonably declined a large number of sexual assault cases during his tenure as U.S. attorney.
“Kurt’s office prosecuted every viable sexual abuse felony referred to it and pursued the most serious charge readily provable from the evidence,” the spokesperson said.
“Many ‘declined’ cases were to allow more appropriate tribal prosecutions ― they were not dropped.
Kurt will bring his years of experience prosecuting criminals and working with the Sexual Assault Response Teams on our Native American reservations to the U.S.
Senate to strengthen investigations, support victims, and better protect women and children.”
Alme is currently running for Daines’ Senate seat, and Daines went out of his way to clear the path for him.
In a stunning and orchestrated maneuver, the two-term senator in March abruptly withdrew from reelection as Alme filed to run for his seat, minutes before the state’s filing period closed.
Daines’ last-minute change-up was an effort to block potential Democrats or any major Republican challenger from jumping into an open Senate race.
Alme is taking on Democrat Alani Bankhead and independent candidate Seth Bodnar in the November election.
Bankhead and Bodner have been duking it out for weeks, with each appealing to different factions of the Democratic party and calling on the other to drop out.
This Senate seat is rated “solid Republican” by the nonpartisan Cook’s Political Report, meaning Alme is well-positioned to win the general election.
But this race would be more competitive if Bodner and Alme were going head to head, without Bankhead in the running.
Speakers
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