HELENA - Michael Hilton, the self-styled "Captain Mike" and California felon who founded the private security firm seeking to run an empty jail in Hardin, has been summoned back to court in California over an unpaid judgment in a fraud lawsuit.

California Superior Judge Andrew Kauffman on Friday ordered Hilton, who has also gone by more than a dozen aliases, to appear at an Oct. 29 Los Angeles County hearing where he's been asked to provide a stack of financial documents, including details of who has paid for his recent trips to Hardin.

Hilton and several of his former associates owe close to $700,000 as a result of a nine-year-old judgment in a fraud case stemming from investments Hilton and others collected for an independent-living center in California that they never built.

The judgment is one of several against Hilton, a naturalized U.S. citizen originally from Serbia, which total about $1.1 million.

All calls to Hilton's California work phone number were referred to Becky Shay, the Hardin spokeswoman for American Police Force. Shay did not respond to requests for comment for this story.

Among the documents lawyers are seeking are any documents showing payments to Hilton or American Police Force and any assets the company may have due to its contract with the Hardin.

Hilton's newly formed American Police Force plans to run a never-opened 464-bed jail built by Two Rivers Authority, the economic development arm of the city of Hardin.

Since those plans were announced last month, however, Hilton's lengthy criminal past has been made public, and questions have surfaced about Hilton's purported past experience in law enforcement and the military. Hilton has conceded that the "captain" title he uses is not a military rank.

Montana Attorney General Steve Bullock last week launched a civil investigation into APF's contract with Two Rivers Authority, which built the jail as a way of bringing jobs to the community.

The jail has not opened because no law enforcement entity has sought to house inmates there.

The $27 million in revenue bonds sold to finance the jail has since gone into default. U.S. Bank, the trustee on the bonds, has yet to sign off on Two Rivers' contract with APF.

Related

• APF withdraws effort to run Hardin jail
• American Police Force won't give up info sought by Montana AG
• Was Hilton just the latest to seek gains from Hardin?