Two Rivers Regional Correctional Facility

Promoted by a consortium of Texan developers/operators, and despite an initial economic feasibility analysis that concluded it would not be a viable project and despite substantial legislative obstacles, construction began on the Two Rivers Regional Correctional Facility, located in Hardin, Montana, in 2006.

The jail was completed by July 2007. It fostered the hopes of creating 100-plus jobs and stimulating the economy of the small town of 3,400.

The jail, a 464-bed minimum security detention facility, was built with $27.4 million in high interest revenue bonds issued by the City's new industrial development corporation, the Two Rivers Port Authority (TRA) and sold by bond brokers Municipal Capital Markets and Herbert J. Sims.

Lacking any revenue and with its insurance having run out and debt reserve depleted, the facility defaulted on its bonds on May 1, 2008.

In the fall of 2008, unsuccessful at attracting contracts from various counties, states, tribes and federal agencies, it was proposed to the state of Montana to house a sexual offender program. Hardin's incomplete bid was twice rejected. A Montana sheriff had described it as "a warehouse."

In January 2009, the two-year contract was not renewed and the operator, Community Education Centers/CiviGenics, withdrew its last two employees that it had imported from Texas.

In March 2009, the Hardin city council voted 5-0 to back a proposal to bring detainees from the United States detention camps at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to Hardin although state congressional leaders had opposed the plan.

On September 3–4, 2009, the economic development director, the attorney and the vice president of Hardin's TRA negotiated a draft contract with a Southern California confidence man, “Michael Hilton.” Hilton is an ex-convict Serbian immigrant with more than a dozen aliases and criminal convictions, who lost many fraud, rescission and unlawful detainer cases with over $1 million in adverse judgments against him.

"Hilton" claimed to be representing a recently registered, largely confabulated “major security firm,” “The American Police Force” (APF) as a "Captain" in its employ.

On September 9, news of the tentative contract was released to the credulous regional press, which "bit" on the grossly implausible story, publishing articles on the 10th that detailed outlandish claims. These included alleging that "APF" would build homeless and animal shelters, hire a police force and provide a chief, and was going to more than triple the capacity of the vacant jail. The “APF” alleged it was going to build a 104,000-square-foot (9,700 m²) training center, as well as a “state of the art” $17 million forensics lab, donate used computers to local schools, give residents free CAT scans, build new housing for employees and have the (nonexistent) police deliver food to Hardin’s hungry.

The press added information incrementally to stories in the next three weeks despite being quickly alerted that the recently registered APF website was a compendium of falsehoods, photoshopped and purloined pictures lifted from military sites, and that the corporation’s Washington D.C. address was fictitious. The copy was interspersed with only timidly skeptical comments.

"Hilton," with two confederates and his elderly father, arrived in Hardin two weeks later driving three new Mercedes-Benz SUVs that he claimed he intended to donate to the nonexistent “Hardin Police Department." Hiring the Hardin beat reporter from the Billings Gazette as his spokesperson, and leaving her with one of the SUVs, he returned to California with two of the SUVs after the story of his civil cases losses and criminal convictions came to light.

Due in part to the name of his largely mythical organization, and the associated “mystery” surrounding it, the radical right wing blogosphere came alive with hysterical assertions that the APF and its jail contract represented the vanguard of the takeover of the United States in a coup. It was claimed that it was the beginnings of President Obama’s new “national police force," and that Hardin’s was the first to be publicized of many the FEMA concentration camps covertly constructed to hold dissidents. It was said to be a mechanism to register and seize all weapons from the populace.

There were frantic reports of alleged sightings of “black helicopters,” that APF was patrolling the streets of Hardin and "pulling people over," and it was erecting gates at the road to the city. Claims by conspiracy theorists were further made that the APF wasn’t allowing people to leave town, and that they were forcing people to be vaccinated with harmful serum. Many posters to these websites claimed that it was a portent of the Second Coming of Christ and urged prayers to protect the innocent.

Despite the furor, elected and appointed officials from Hardin continued to vouch for the viability of the contract and for Hilton’s alleged reformation.

The bondholding investors and trustee, whose agreement was necessary for the contract to be accepted, hesitated to comply.

By January 2010, the TRA had hired its fifth director who was laboring to find inmates for the empty jail. There remained about $814,000 remaining in a “reserve fund” managed by the trustee of the bonds sold to build the facility. That money is going to pay insurance, heat, electricity and the bare minimum of services the building requires to be operational.

"Kim Hammond, mayor of Hardin, has warned cities...to tread lightly when considering the proposals brought forth by private companies like Corplan."

As of June 2011, the jail had never held a prisoner, nor had any prospects for it doing so been publicized.