(U.S Attorney's office news release)
GREAT FALLS — A federal district judge today found a Billings man, formerly of Hays, guilty of multiple crimes involving the sexual assault and molestation of children, attempted sex trafficking, child pornography and other crimes dating back approximately 30 years on the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation and in Billings, U.S. Attorney Jesse Laslovich said.
After a three-day bench trial that began on Sept. 9, Chief U.S. District Judge Brian M. Morris found the defendant, James Kirby King, 58, guilty on 17 counts in a 25-count superseding indictment that alleged various sexual assault child molestation crimes against six separate victims. The court found King not guilty on eight counts.
“The years-long horror of sexual abuse and trauma King inflicted on his victims, most of whom were children when he started his assaults, is unimaginable. King unconscionably sought out vulnerable children for exploitation to satisfy his own desires and caused a lifetime of pain for them. May these verdicts serve as a measure of justice for them. Protecting children from predators like King is our office’s highest priority, and I am deeply grateful to our prosecution team, the FBI, Fort Belknap Law Enforcement, and Great Falls Police Department for their extraordinary work on this awful case,” U.S. Attorney Laslovich said.
The government alleged in court documents and at trial that King was a prolific sex offender who preyed on the most vulnerable and marginalized Native Americans in Montana for decades by molesting, sexually assaulting, drugging, trafficking and exploiting any defenseless person without regard to their sex, age or biological relationship. During trial, the government presented evidence that led to convictions for offenses against victims identified as Jane Doe 1, Jane Doe 2, Jane Doe 3, Jane Doe 4, Jane Doe 10 and other multiple victims. Some of the victims were under the age of 12 at the time, some were under the age of 16 and some were adults. Most of the conduct occurred on the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation, where King lived, and in Billings, where King lived more recently. The charged conduct began as early as approximately 1992 and continued until his arrest in 2023.
As alleged in court documents, for more than a decade, King repeatedly molested, drugged, assaulted and sexually exploited Jane Doe 1, whose first memory of the molestation was when she was five years old in 1996. In approximately 1994 or 1995, when Jane Doe 2 was 14 years old, King gave her a small amount of alcohol at his residence and she “went blank.” Jane Doe 2 later awoke and became aware of King kneeling between her legs and taking pictures of her naked vaginal area. In addition, King attempted to sexually exploit Jane Doe 3 on numerous occasions and forced numerous sex acts on her both as a child and later as an adult on the Fort Belknap Reservation and in Billings. King drugged and raped Jane Doe 4 on the Fort Belknap Reservation when she was in her 20s and he was in his 40s. And King attempted to sex traffic by coercion Jane Doe 10 in October 2023.
The court found King guilty of:
- Aggravated sexual abuse of a child, one count
- Incest, two counts
- Sexual exploitation of children, three counts
- Aggravated sexual abuse by rendering unconscious or drugging the victim, two counts
- Sexual abuse, two counts
- Attempted aggravated sexual abuse by rendering unconscious or drugging the victim, one count
- Attempted sexual abuse, one count
- Sexual abuse of a minor, one count
- Aggravated sexual abuse by force, one count
- Attempted possession with the intent to sell child pornography in Indian Country, one count
- Possession of child pornography in Indian Country, one count
- Attempted sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion, one count
King faces a maximum of life in prison, a $250,000 fine and five years to a lifetime of supervised release, along with a mandatory minimum of 15 years to life in prison for the crimes of sexual exploitation of children and attempted sex trafficking by coercion.
The court will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors. Sentencing was set for Jan. 15, 2025. King remained detained pending further proceedings.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office is prosecuting the case. The FBI, Fort Belknap Law Enforcement and Great Falls Police Department conducted the investigation.
