My name is Margaret Vieyra-Barajas, but everyone calls me Rita. I am a friend of the homeless shelter ministry of Big Sky Christian Center and Harris Himes in Hamilton, Montana. This spring, approximately thirty men, women, and children were ordered off the shelter property, where they had been living in trailers and RVs because they had nowhere else to go. Ravalli County has sued Big Sky Christian Center, Holy Ground, and Harris because he took them in. Harris does not believe in asking for money for the ministry, so I offered to do the asking. This GoFundMe pays the costs of defending the shelter so it can keep serving the people who need it. Harris agreed to give me the facts; the asking is mine.
Who the ministry is
In 1997, after graduating from the Calvary Chapel School of Ministry [Calvary Chapel ordination certificate] and teaching Greek and Hebrew there for several years, Harris was ordained by Pastor Chuck Smith and his board at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa. Harris felt called by the Lord to come to Hamilton that same year.
Big Sky Christian Center runs the Bitterroot Valley's only year-round shelter open to anyone who is homeless. The Valley's other refuges serve vital but specific needs: a shelter for survivors of domestic abuse, and volunteer warming centers that open on the coldest winter nights. For everyone else, in every season, this is the place. It serves veterans, people with mental and physical disabilities, felons who have no place else to go, and mothers and fathers and children. Many local service agencies and the Sheriff's Department refer people to them for help. Over nearly three decades, the ministry has served hundreds of people in need.
Holy Ground owns the property that Big Sky Christian Center and Harris use for the ministry. The ministry is not a 501(c)(3); Holy Ground is recognized by the State of Montana as tax exempt for the portion of the property used by the ministry.
The problem I ran into first
I started handing out information flyers to various groups to help raise funds for the shelter through this GoFundMe. I ran into a problem which needs to be dealt with at the very beginning. When I handed a flyer to the secretary at a local church, she said, "Oh, him!" and started to throw the flyer away. I took it back and said I would find someone who wanted to help the homeless.
I told Harris what had happened, and he explained to me that there are many who consider him a crook. He provided me with information that I would like to share with everyone. Here is what actually happened, and what the courts later said about it.
The securities case
Around 2008 and 2009, two men Harris considered friends went into business together. One invested in the Mexican company of Harris's fellow Calvary Chapel pastor. Harris advised against the venture, but he did some of the paperwork. As Harris predicted, the investment soured, and the investor turned on the pastor and blamed both him and Harris. It was easier to go after Harris, who was in the United States, than the pastor in Mexico.
Harris woke up one morning to find himself accused of being a criminal in the Ravalli Republic and the Missoulian and other news outlets across the state. In 2011 he was charged by the state auditor's office with several counts of securities violations.
Harris was known statewide for his lobbying. For several years he was the president of the Montana Family Coalition and later the president of Montana Eagle Forum, Phyllis Schlafly's group. He was also on KGVO in Missoula once a month on their "Talkback" program, encouraging churches to be more active in the public forum. The auditor's chief counsel, who was running for attorney general at the time, prosecuted the case. Two attorneys familiar with the case say in sworn affidavits that the prosecution was politically motivated:
"There is no doubt in my mind that this was a politically motivated case against Mr. Himes." (Affidavit of Matthew Monforton, Harris's attorney and former member of the Montana House of Representatives [affidavit])
"There is also evidence that his case was politically motivated." (Affidavit of attorney Quentin Rhoades, who represented the pastor in Mexico and who is familiar with Harris's case [affidavit])
After Harris disqualified the two local district judges, the case was assigned to a Dillon judge.
What his attorney found
Harris met Matthew Monforton at an Alliance Defense Fund (ADF, now Alliance Defending Freedom) convention. Harris had been involved with ADF for several years, helping local churches and others across the state. Harris asked Mr. Monforton to represent him.
"After carefully reviewing the file immediately after Mr. Himes retained me, I was convinced that Mr. Himes was completely innocent of the charges against him. To this day, I firmly believe that he was wrongly convicted.
"As to his case, whistleblowers in the auditor's office complained of anti-Christian discrimination, particularly by the deputy securities commissioner, Lynne Egan, who frequently criticized Christians and referred to the Boy Scouts as 'Nazi's.' She was the states undeclared expert witness at Mr. Himes's trial. There was substantial evidence that his case was affected by this discrimination.
"Additionally, the auditor's chief counsel at that time, a State Senator who had opposed pro-family positions in the state legislature, was running for attorney general. Indicting – and convicting – Mr. Himes would appeal to his voter base." . . .
"Mr. Himes, a Vietnam veteran who successfully practiced law in California throughout his career, and has run a homeless shelter in Montana since retiring, has paid a heavy price for crimes he did not commit." [Monforton affidavit]
If Harris and his attorney were able to prove that he was the victim of anti-Christian discrimination, then they could have the case dismissed for selectively prosecuting him for his Christianity. The evidence which Harris and Mr. Monforton discovered caused Montana Supreme Court Justice Jim Rice to remark:
"… The evidence Himes has marshaled is not insignificant. Himes has produced sworn testimony of employees offering their first-hand observations of visceral anti-Christian bias on the part of officials within the auditor's office, and mistreatment of Christians in that office….This evidence is nothing short of appalling…." (Montana Supreme Court Justice Jim Rice. Harris Himes v. Montana Twenty-First District, Ravalli County, the Hon. Loren Tucker, District Judge, OP 13-224, pp. 10-11, May 21, 2013.) [Monforton affidavit]
The trial
Harris then requested further discovery from the Dillon judge, but the judge refused:
"It is troubling to the undersigned, a Christian, that Himes has offered such a deficient skein of obfuscation purportedly based upon his religious beliefs to avoid defending on the merits." [Monforton affidavit]
For a judge who is supposed to be neutral, this does not sound like it to me.
Harris appealed this refusal to the Supreme Court, but it was denied. He and Mr. Monforton then tried to remove the judge. Mr. Monforton writes:
"While there is always a risk that a judge will retaliate if an attempt is made to disqualify him or her, I had no choice but to attempt to disqualify our trial judge because of his apparent prejudice toward our case. In his response to my motion to disqualify him, the judge strongly criticized me, personally. My motion to disqualify failed." [Monforton affidavit]
Given these unfortunate circumstances, Mr. Monforton and Harris decided that Mr. Monforton would withdraw as counsel.
Harris always said he was innocent; so, he refused any plea bargains. Even though he had virtually no criminal trial experience because he has done almost exclusively civil litigation, he decided to defend himself. But criminal defense is much different from civil defense.
Harris tells me that he is a member of the prestigious American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA), a distinction that fewer than 2% of the attorneys doing civil jury trials can qualify for and is also qualified to appear before the United States Supreme Court.
Even with his qualifications, I can only imagine how scary it must have been for Harris to try his own case with so much on the line. After all, he was 71 years old, and with all that pressure. Each of the six charges carried a maximum of ten years in prison.
Mr. Rhoades explains in his affidavit what Harris faced at trial:
"There is substantial evidence that Mr. Himes faced a biased, adversarial judge.
"The judge frequently demeaned Mr. Himes and his witnesses.
"He refused to hear twelve offers of proof, where even one such denial is reversible error. State v. Davis, 156 A.2d 392, 393 (1959)."
In Mr. Rhoades's affidavit, he talks about several other things that went wrong with Harris's trial. Harris served 90 days in jail. It would have been worse if so many people had not shown up to testify on his behalf at his sentencing, including Dallas Erickson, Cathy Donaldson, and many residents from the shelter. Charles Donaldson also testified at his trial, but the judge would not let him present all the evidence he could have provided.
Mr. Rhoades writes that the sentence should have been deferred, because Harris's offenses were nonviolent and he had no prior record. With a deferred sentence, the convictions would have gone away after Harris met some requirements. He would have had a clean record, which he deserved. Instead the judge gave him a suspended sentence, so his felonies remain.
He was ordered to pay $150,000 in restitution to his accuser, plus interest and fines. Harris tells me he never received a penny of that money; the investment went to the company in Mexico, and the California Bar Court later found that his role consisted simply of handling the paperwork.
The judge gave him ten years' probation, but Harris made a motion, and it was terminated early.
The statute that does not exist
Probably the thing that troubles me most about what happened to Harris is that the statute they used for his jury instruction was made up by the prosecution. It does not exist. They even admitted it at his sentencing. If there is no statute, there is no offense. Mr. Rhoades explains it much better:
"There is also a problem with the jury instruction having to do with securities. . . The State admitted to fabricating a definition when they defined 'willfully' in terms of 'knowingly': 'The definition of willfully in Title 1 is almost identical to the definition of knowingly….' (Sentencing Transcript 47:20-22). In other words, there is no such statute which defines 'willfully' in this manner.
"Since there is no such statute, there is no offense of which Mr. Himes was convicted, because, for there to be an offense, it must be described in the law: Section 45-1-104(2), MCA reads: 'No conduct constitutes an offense unless it is described as an offense in this code or in another statute of this state.'" [Rhoades affidavit]
To me, these are important reasons to believe Harris did not get a fair trial, as much as I want to believe in our court system. Reading the other problems in Mr. Rhoades's affidavit, and those in Mr. Monforton's, saddens me. I encourage you to read these affidavits for yourself.
What the courts ultimately said
When the trial was over, California Judge Robert Knell, who followed the case, sums it up this way in his affidavit:
"I followed Mr. Himes's trial in 2013. The jury found him not guilty of theft by deception, conspiracy to commit theft by deception, and conspiracy to commit fraudulent practices. Due to an [another] incorrect jury instruction, he was convicted of fraudulent practices, but this was reversed on appeal and dismissed on remand. Ultimately, he was convicted of essentially regulatory charges of failure to register as a salesperson and failure to register a security. In California, these would be misdemeanors (California Corporations Codes Sections 25210 and 25110, misdemeanors 'which may or may not involve moral turpitude'); but they are felonies in Montana.'" . . . [Knell affidavit]
After Harris's appeals to the Montana Supreme Court and all the way up to the US Supreme Court were finished, the California State Bar moved to disbar him, because Harris is licensed in California. California has so many attorneys that it has its own Bar Court to hear disciplinary cases. The Bar Court judge ordered a full trial of the facts instead of accepting the Montana convictions as the final word, because disbarment requires moral turpitude. That trial allowed Harris to put on the case the judge in Montana would not permit. Judge Knell puts the Bar Court's decision in perspective:
"It seems to me that the Bar Court's Decision substantially exonerates Mr. Himes: 'many of Serata's [Harris's accuser] claims are not credible on their face or are completely contradicted by evidence from other sources,' and Mr. Himes's misconduct does 'not evidence any act of moral turpitude;' his actions consist simply of 'modifying and presenting to Serata the written evidence of his investment in Duratherm.'" [Knell affidavit]
In January 2018, the Bar Court found that Harris's conduct involved no moral turpitude. His law license was restored to active standing on August 11, 2021, after he fulfilled the probation the Bar Court ordered, and that November Harris chose to become inactive. [California Bar public record]
That is the record. We share it so you can judge for yourself, and so the past does not stand between you and the people who need this shelter now.
What the County did
Here is what Harris has told me about the court case with Ravalli County.
This spring, the County's court action forced approximately thirty men, women, and children to leave the trailers and RVs where they had been living on the shelter property when the court's compliance deadline expired on or about May 4, 2026. About thirty-five residents remain at the shelter today.
Since February 2023, Ravalli County has challenged the shelter's efforts to help people who had nowhere else to live but the trailers and RVs on the property.
Here is an example of how their attorney has tried to protect them. [Emergency Motion for Stay]
Harris tells me that the issue is a septic system installed by Shiloh Christian Ministries in the early 1970s, before permits were required, and that it should be grandfathered in. There has never been a single documented instance of contamination, water quality impairment, illness, or environmental harm caused by any wastewater system on this property in more than fifty years of operation, including years when the same infrastructure served far larger numbers than it does today. The system is professionally serviced; its most recent pumping, in March 2026, found the liquid level correct. [Brown's septic statement] Yet the County insists this system constitutes a danger to the environment, with no evidence to substantiate their claims and demands.
What the State of Montana found
The strongest answer to the County's claims came from the State of Montana itself. The County referred the matter to the state Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ). For several months, Harris asked DEQ to show him proof that the law applied to the ministry. DEQ investigated and, in its June 11, 2024 closure letter, found no evidence that the property is a campground open to the public: no advertising, no presence on the internet or social media, and no signage of any kind. DEQ closed its complaint. [DEQ closure letter]
The ministry also cooperated with the County directly. It provided septic permits and site plans and paid for expensive flow testing out of its own funds. Nothing was found wrong.
The County had demanded that the ministry conduct expensive tests and hire engineers and an attorney. Since the ministry could not afford them, Harris repeatedly offered the County, at the County's own expense, opportunities to conduct these tests if the County was truly worried about harm to the environment. The County ignored his offers. When Harris asked the County to give reasons for its refusal to work with the shelter, he was ignored.
The County had accused the shelter of being a public campground because residents contribute donations, which the County insisted was rent. There are no rental or lease agreements at the shelter. Harris put exactly that to DEQ, and DEQ's investigation closed the complaint.
The County persisted
County officials entered the ministry's property without permission, and a sitting Board of Health member said of the shelter, on the record, "I believe it will turn into a gigantic pimple that needs to be dealt with." [County recording, July 10, 2024, 00:07:42] The County continued to demand compliance or face litigation.
The County has now brought the massive expense of litigation upon the shelter's mission to a most fragile segment of our society.
Missoula attorney Quentin Rhoades is defending the ministry against the County in the County case, and the ministry has brought its own case against the County in federal court in Missoula, where it is represented by Mr. Rhoades and two religious-liberty specialists from Washington, D.C., Roman Storzer and Adam Lang.
The County's lawyers, the County Litigation Group, are paid with taxpayer money. [Notice of Appearance] The shelter's defense is paid by people like you. The ministry does not have the luxury of the County's resources for attorneys' fees and litigation costs which extend well into the foreseeable future.
Before the County's Board of Health voted, area churches wrote to the Board in support of Big Sky Christian Center's homeless shelter; more wrote than are shown here. Among the letters included, the founder of the Family Shelter of the Bitterroot, a fellow homeless-services nonprofit, wrote that Harris deserves "a commendation for using his property to help those who are the most in need, rather than try to find a technicality to make him cease and desist those efforts." (Assembly of God, Grace Lutheran, Salvation Army, Family Shelter of the Bitterroot)
About Harris
Here are some facts about Harris which people might want to take into consideration.
The Veterans Day dinner at the Events Center last November 11, supported by all the American Legion posts of the Valley, was Harris's idea.
The August 2025 issue of Leatherneck Magazine, the official magazine of the Marine Corps, featured the story of Harris's tank platoon at the besieged combat base of Khe Sanh. [Leatherneck article] As a First Lieutenant, Harris commanded the 1st Platoon of Bravo Company, 3rd Tank Battalion, 3rd Marine Division, with five tanks under his charge. His platoon spearheaded the armored relief of Khe Sanh, and on May 19, 1968, Ho Chi Minh's birthday, fought through a six-hour ambush in which every one of his tanks was hit. Leatherneck records that Harris was wounded twice in Vietnam: seriously wounded in August 1967 while commanding a tank in combat and evacuated to a hospital ship, returning with his arm still in a sling to finish his tour; then wounded again on May 19, 1968, carrying one of his wounded tank commanders to safety under fire before being medevaced a second time.
His medals include the Bronze Star with "V" for Valor and two Purple Hearts.
Leatherneck records that Harris remained on active duty for two years after Vietnam and retired as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Marine Corps Reserve. As a reserve officer, he commanded the legal unit that gave free legal advice to Marines at the El Toro air base.
For the photo captions: Harris fenced for Cornell University, Class of 1964, won first place in the American Legion's National Poppy Poster Contest as a boy, was an Eagle Scout, completed Army Airborne jump school at Fort Benning in July 1970, and was named an honorary Navy SEAL in 1986.
A closing word
This is an opportunity to participate in the Lord's work. May the Lord bless all those who consider this and particularly those who contribute financially to His ministry to the homeless in Ravalli County.
If you would rather give by mail, checks can be sent to Big Sky Christian Center, PO Box 540, Hamilton, MT 59840.
Margaret (Rita) Vieyra-Barajas