William Allery was sentenced in district court on Nov. 4 after taking a plea deal in September in connection with a sex trafficking ring in Great Falls.

In the agreement, he entered an Alford plea to felony counts of endangering the welfare of a child, tampering with witnesses or informants and accountability for criminal distribution of dangerous drugs.

An Alford plea is a defendant acknowledging there’s enough evidence to convict but not admitting to the facts. It carries the same significance in sentencing as a guilty plea.

Allery changes plea in sex trafficking case

On Nov. 4, Judge Elizabeth Best followed the plea agreement and sentenced him to five years with the Montana Department of Corrections for each count, consecutive, all suspended.

That means he has 15 years of probation and was credited for 582 days of time served in the Cascade County Adult Detention Center.

Allery was arrested in February 2024 and charged with felony counts of sexual intercourse without consent; promoting prostitution; endangering the welfare of a child; criminal endangerment; and tampering with a witness or informants.

Amato sentenced in sex trafficking case

A charge of accountability for criminal distribution of dangerous drugs was filed later as a separate case against Allery and combined with the initial charges for the plea agreement.

James Amato was arrested at the same time and charged with felony counts of sexual assault; promoting prostitution; endangering the welfare of a child; criminal endangerment, criminal possession of dangerous drugs and accountability for criminal distribution of dangerous drugs.

During the Nov. 4 sentencing hearing, neither side called any witnesses.

Amato changes plea in sex trafficking case

Michele Levine, a deputy county attorney, prosecuted the case and said that the victim was a 15-year-old runaway at the time and didn’t want to testify at trial since reliving the trauma was not helpful to her healing process.

The victim wanted her 2024 deposition used for trial, but since defendants have a right to face their accusers, prosecutors said they wouldn’t be able to use her deposition in this case.

Allery’s previous attorney didn’t attend the deposition, so Allery didn’t have a chance to cross examine the victim, which if part of the process at trial.

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Levine said that Allery had denied using meth but his hair samples tested positive and after being charged, he’d contacted someone asking them to destroy some of his meth. He’d also made threats to the victim and her family in an attempt to prevent her from telling anyone about what had happened, according to prosecutors.

“He hasn’t taken much responsibility for his actions,” Levine said of Allery.

Benjamin Darrow represented Allery during the hearing and said that if they’d gone to trial it would have been a hard case with an uncertain outcome.

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He said the victim was harmed by many people but that Amato was more culpable than Allery.

Darrow said they “can’t unwind the clock, it’s terrible what’s happened,” but that Allery had taken accountability for his actions.

She said that some would find Allery more culpable, based on evidence she’d seen in the case, but agreed the plea agreement was appropriate.

“This victim has been through enough,” she said and based on the evidence presented in the case, Allery faced “high risk” of being found guilty by a jury on the other charges that the prosecution dismissed in the agreement.

Best said that if she had known, she wouldn’t have let the victim’s deposition go for seven hours and “I thought it was abusive.”

In issuing the sentence, Best said that Allery and Amato preyed on a minor child.

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“This was unconscionable conduct,” she said. “Preying on a 15-year-old who’s probably never going to recover from this.”

She told Allery that she appreciates that he’s been law abiding since being released after changing his plea in September but “to me, you need treatment. I don’t think anyone who is mentally healthy would do this to a child. You have a lot of atoning to do from my perspective.”

Amato was sentenced in April after entering an Alford plea in February.

The victim’s grandmother contacted The Electric last year about the October 2024 deposition. To protect the identity of the victim, we are not naming the grandmother either.

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The deposition was held to get the victim’s testimony in case she ran away before the trial that had been previously scheduled.

The victim’s grandmother attended and told The Electric last year that the victim was questioned for roughly six hours with Allery and Amato sitting just a few feet away, staring at her from across the table.

Allery didn’t have an attorney present, but Molly Woodman, Amato’s attorney, “asked questions including why she was on probation, where she got her clothing, and who she sold drugs for. [The victim] was made to feel like a criminal.  She finally shut down and could not finish. She was sobbing, shaking, and begging to be taken back to the JDC,” the victim’s grandmother told The Electric. “Court trials for rape victims are as traumatic as the assault. Victims are forced to relive the attacks. They have to talk about it in front of numerous people and on camera. [The victim] is a child. She is terrified. She is being held in the JDC. She has numerous mental health issues which are not being addressed. I believe she is currently a victim of the justice system in Great Falls, and this [deposition] was exceedingly harmful.”

According to the charging documents, a Great Falls Police detective conducted a forensic interview with a then 15-year-old girl on Feb. 14, 2024 who told detectives about a man named “Bill,” later identified as Allery.

The girl said she met Allery through another boy when she was on the run and doing drugs. The boy told her Allery could help her “get into the game and make money.”

She told detectives that Allery advised her she could sell sex, according to court documents.

The victim told detectives that she went to meet Allery and the other boy also took her to “Tony’s” house where he had a hot tub in his garage, near Super 1 Foods. Tony was later identified as Amato, according to court documents.

The victim told detectives that Allery lived behind Poppy’s on 15th Street South and he would have her have sex with other men to get money and drugs, according to court documents.

She told detectives that other girls were at Amato’s residences to have sex with men, “like it was their job,” according to court documents.

The victim told detectives that Allery raped her multiple times and that she didn’t know all of the other men who also raped her, according to court documents.

She said that Allery threatened to hurt her mother if she told anyone about what was happening, according to court documents.

The victim told detectives that Allery gave her drugs for having sex with him and that he injected what he said was meth into her arm, according to court documents.

At Amato’s, she told detectives that she was raped in the hot tub in the garage by multiple men and she was afraid they would hurt her.

A GFPD detective drove the victim to the 2500 block of 11th Avenue South where she had left her backpack in a dark SUV. She told detectives that she had underwear in the bag that were dirty and would have forensic evidence on them, according to court documents.

GFPD officers later spotted the SUV and saw drug paraphernalia in the vehicle, which was impounded.

Detectives also drove the victim to an apartment building in the 1000 block of 5th Avenue North where she said she had left other belongings, including a phone she had used to communicate with Allery.

Detectives drove the victim to Amato’s house in the 3200 block of 9th Avenue South and officers contacted area neighbors who said there had been “odd comings and goings” from the house in the alley, specifically the garage, that the garage light was frequently on in the middle of the night, that multiple vehicles show up in the middle of the night in the alley and sit for awhile, and that people go into the garage for a short time, then leave, according to court documents.

“They all said they noticed ‘sketchy’ people show up to the garage in the alley at all hours of the night,” according to court documents.

During the 2015 investigation, during which Amato was a woman’s source of meth, Amato told investigators that he cut down the meth because he felt bad for females he was selling it to, that he gave money back to one woman because he felt bad for her, that he allowed some of the girls to stay in his garage overnight while his wife was sleeping in the house, according to court documents.

In a subsequent interview with the victim, she told detectives that Allery and Amato kept the money from other men who had sex with her. She said Allery and Amato believed her to be 16, but found out she was 15 and still raped her, according to court documents.

The victim told detectives that Amato tried to have sex with her, but she declined, but he had her touch him and that he had videos of himself having sex with other girls.