County Failed Strommen Victims, Suit Alleges

A pair of lawsuits filed in Federal Court in Great Falls in early November allege Valley County failed to act in protecting the then-underage victims of ex-Undersheriff and convicted sex offender Luke Strommen when he sexually abused and raped them while on duty as a Valley County Sheriff’s Deputy.

The two women, now adults, filed separate lawsuits through the same attorneys last week seeking to hold Valley County responsible for what they see as a failure to protect them. The complaints stated that the county should have been aware that Strommen was “incompetent or unfit to fill the position of undersheriff based on his inappropriate sexual conduct towards woman and children and/or inappropriate conduct he engaged in.”

One of the plaintiffs is the same victim who testified against Luke Strommen in the case that led to his conviction on rape charges in July. That case proved Strommen had in fact raped the plaintiff starting when she was 14 years old.

The second plaintiff alleges Strommen raped her when she was just 16 years old back in early 2014. Saying he acted while “under color of law” they allege Strommen’s conduct occurred while he was on duty and while on or in county property, including his patrol vehicle.

The two lawsuits join a third against the county regarding Strommen filed in January 2020 and amended June 25 in federal court. That lawsuit alleges very similar conduct by Strommen but goes further in saying that the plaintiff complained directly to Valley County in January 2015 about Strommen raping her and the county failed to do anything about it.

The lawsuits are the latest in a long drawn out series of cases involving the ex-undersheriff that spans the last two years. In 2018, while running as a candidate for Sheriff, Strommen was unexpectedly put on administrative leave pending an investigation into what was said to be “professional misconduct.”

As time went on, the investigation was handled mostly in secret with little information trickling out to the public. The election continued. In the summer of 2018, Strommen withdrew from the Sheriff’s race and he was charged shortly thereafter with sexual abuse of a child on Oct. 11, just weeks ahead of the November election. In October 2018, Strommen pleaded not guilty to the charge.

Following media coverage law enforcement became aware of a separate Strommen victim and added to the case charges of rape in late December 2018. For months the case dragged on until just weeks before the trial was set to begin in November 2019, Strommen pleaded guilty to the singular charge of sexual abuse of a child a year after being charged in October.

As part of a plea deal, Strommen admitted that he had received a semi-nude image of a 17-year-old girl with whom he was in a consensual affair, according to court documents. He received no jail time for the crime but was forced to register as a sex offender and seek sex-offender treatment among other conditions.

In July 2020, Strommen stood on trial on charges of sexual intercourse without consent (rape), and after a week-long trial he was found guilty in less than three hours of deliberations. He has not yet been sentenced. Sentencing was set for the end of August, but a series of scheduling conflicts and a delayed psycho-sexual evaluation continue to push back the date, according to law enforcement sources.

The three lawsuits name Valley County, Luke Strommen and three John Does (a legal place holder that allows the plaintiffs to name further defendants should others be identified during discovery). They allege damages for a variety of reasons to include mental and emotional stress, loss or impairment to income, medical expenses, legal costs and punitive damages among others. No hearing dates have been set for any of the cases.

Valley County Attorney Dylan Jensen did not respond to a request for comment on the newest two lawsuits.