HELENA — About a year and a half after the first investigations into former Montana Senate President Sen. Jason Ellsworth, R-Hamilton, began, Ellsworth is going on trial this week on a charge of official misconduct.
Ellsworth’s trial began Wednesday morning in Helena, as prosecutors and defense attorneys delivered their opening arguments to a jury.
(Watch the video to hear more from the opening statements.)
The charge stems from Ellsworth’s handling of state contracts while serving as president. In December 2024, he signed off on a pair of contracts, together worth $170,000, with Agile Analytics – a company created and operated by Bryce Eggleston, a former business associate. Ellsworth tapped the company to track a series of judicial reform bills during the 2025 legislative session.
State staff questioned whether the proposed contracts had gone through the correct bidding process. While Ellsworth defended his actions, he said he and Eggleston agreed to cancel the contracts after the controversy surrounding them.
Prosecutors argue Ellsworth improperly steered the contracts to Eggleston. Assistant Attorney General Dan Guzynski told jurors the contracts were unusual because they called for Eggleston to be paid upfront and because none of the documentation included Eggleston’s name. He said there was no reason the two contracts should have been separated, except to keep them smaller than $100,000 – the limit above which a state contract would require additional review from the Montana Department of Administration.
“You’ll learn from the evidence that there’s nothing ordinary about these contracts,” said Guzynski.
But Ellsworth’s defense attorneys said the state was overstating how unusual the contracts were.
“This was an agreement for services,” said Martin Judnich. “This isn't some type of kickback, some sort of government back-end contract where something shady’s going on. It's a very simple contract for services.”
Judnich said it isn’t unreasonable for a contract to use a company’s name rather its owner’s, and that Ellsworth didn’t choose to split the contracts.
Montana law says a public servant commits official misconduct when they act outside their lawful authority “with the purpose to obtain a personal advantage or an advantage for another.”
Prosecutors argue Ellsworth’s behavior indicated he was knowingly trying to get around the state’s normal procedures for contracting.
“The evidence will leave only one reasonable conclusion: Jason Ellsworth exceeded his lawful authority for the purpose of obtaining a financial advantage for Bryce Eggleston,” Guzynski said.
But the defense says Ellsworth isn’t an expert in contract law, and that he was fully cooperative with staff at the Legislative Services Division and Montana Department of Administration as they tried to get the contracts in compliance.
“He asked for help,” said Judnich. “As soon as all of the proposals were given to him, he immediately asked for help. It's quite the opposite from, ‘These are the things that we've agreed to, and you have to make them work.’ None of that happened.”
The state called its first witness Wednesday morning: Bowen Greenwood, clerk of the Montana Supreme Court. Ellsworth challenged Greenwood in the 2024 Republican primary for clerk. Greenwood testified that, after the primary, Ellsworth contacted him multiple times, suggesting he hire Eggleston as a communications director.
Defense attorney Joan Mell said those discussions were not relevant to what Ellsworth is on trial for and that, regardless, he wanted Eggleston in that position for a legitimate policy reason, because he felt Greenwood’s office had not been active enough in using its platform for public messaging about the court and its cases.
The trial is expected to last through the end of this week and could stretch into next week.
If convicted, Ellsworth could face up to $500 in fines and up to six months in jail, and he could be removed from his Senate seat.
Whatever the result of the trial, it will not affect the disciplinary actions the Senate already took against Ellsworth last year, including banning him from the Senate floor for life and stripping his committee assignments.
