HELENA — On Thursday morning, Michael Allen appeared before a judge in Helena and made a tearful statement.
“Your honor, I want to apologize to the people of Montana,” he said.
Allen made his apology just before being sentenced to prison. In October, he pleaded guilty to misappropriating several hundred thousand dollars using his position as executive director of the Montana Heritage Commission.
“For almost 12 years, I held a position of trust, and I destroyed that with my dishonest actions,” he told state District Judge Kathy Seeley.
(Watch the video to hear more from Allen's sentencing hearing.)
Seeley sentenced Allen to 10 years in prison, with all but three years suspended, for one charge of embezzlement, and to a concurrent 14 years, all suspended, for a charge of money laundering. He will also be responsible for paying $280,000 in restitution.
MHC, a state agency attached to the Montana Department of Commerce, is responsible for managing historic Virginia City and Nevada City, as well as Reeder’s Alley in Helena. Allen led it from 2012 to 2024. Prosecutors say, over several years, he took many actions he claimed were for the benefit of those historic properties, but which were actually for his own personal benefit.
One of the main claims is that Allen made out invoices for thousands of dollars to another man, Casey Steinke, for work projects at MHC sites – work that prosecutors say was never completed. Steinke then paid the money back to Allen.
Steinke was also sentenced this week, after pleading guilty to accountability for embezzlement and money laundering. He will spend one year in prison with additional time suspended.
Allen was also accused of giving MHC contracts to Atomic Business Solutions, a company he controlled – again, for work that sometimes was not completed. Investigators said he didn’t disclose his conflict of interest in connection with ABS.
Finally, prosecutors say Allen used his state-issued credit card on a series of improper personal expenses, from personal trips to a tattoo to a payment to a divorce attorney. In some cases, he reported the spending to the state as business-related – like saying the payment to the tattoo shop was for working on a historic artifact.
“The scale of fraud that he self-promoted is simply shocking,” Lewis and Clark County Attorney Kevin Downs said during Thursday’s sentencing hearing.
In addition to the $280,000 Allen will have to pay, Steinke was required to pay back $100,000. During the sentencing, Downs asked Helena Police Department Cpl. Nathan Casey, who investigated the case, whether $380,000 was a fair amount of restitution considering the men’s actions.
“I think that's kind of the minimum of what we've uncovered and been able to prove,” Casey said.
Downs argued Allen should spend ten years in prison before beginning his suspended sentence. He said a longer sentence would reflect the seriousness of breaching the public trust and serve as a deterrent.
“This sentence sends a message to people here, the people who work in these state agencies, God forbid, that if you steal, there's significant consequences,” Downs said.
Peter Lacny, Allen’s attorney, said his client acknowledged the seriousness of his crimes.
“We understand they were an affront to the people of Montana,” he said.
However, he argued they were “an aberration” in how Allen has otherwise lived his life. He asked Seeley to suspend all but two years of Allen’s sentence, saying he was already suffering painful consequences for what he did.
“He'll never have a career again, he’s lost friends over this, and he stands before you today completely and totally humbled,” said Lacny.
The impacts of this case are ongoing. Just this week, the state of Montana cited it as one of the reasons for restructuring lease agreements for businesses in Virginia City and Nevada City – a change that has business owners worried about significant rent increases.
