No, Garrison Courtney was NEVER an CIA agent.
After being raised in Great Falls, and educated at the University of Montana, Garrison Courtney was A LOT of things, like a weatherman for a local news station in Missoula, and a spokesperson for the DEA, but a CIA agent?
Nope, that was just something Garrison Courtney claimed to be in order to steal money from suckers in schemes that sound A LOT like what Matt Marshall did to Montana’s billionaire transplant , Mike Goguen.
After Courtney graduated from UM in 2000, his charm offensive continued, now as a weatherman for KPAX-TV, the CBS affiliate in Missoula. The Missoula Independent named him 2000’s best forecaster, and he was the “celebrity cameo” at a local ballet performance of Cinderella.
Then it was off to the CBS station in Eugene, Oregon, where a former colleague remembers him as “more interested in being funny than doing the weather.” At KVAL, Courtney was on a one-year contract requiring that he clear any changes to his appearance with management. So it was a shock when he showed up to work one day with white-blonde hair.
“He said it was some charity thing… but anyone in TV knows if you change your appearance, they can fire you,” the former co-worker said. “[The news director] didn’t know about it until he was already on the air. When she found out, she came out and said, ‘You go home and do not come back until you look like you did before.’”
A station manager who worked with Courtney said he remembered him as “a good-natured, big lug kind of a guy.”
“When I heard about the [case], I thought, ‘That guy pulled this off?’ It just didn’t seem possible,” the station manager said. “My impression wouldn’t have been that he was diabolical or clever enough to dupe anybody out of $4 million.”
I only just heard about this guy a few days ago thanks to the Instagram algorithm showing me a reel, but when I dug into the story a little more this morning, the name Bill Foley popped up. Yes, the same Bill Foley who just used his daughter’s college experience to bash Seth Bodnar for not keeping her safe from a serial public masturbator.
What a small world!
The documentary shows me laughing at some of Garrison’s cons. I don’t think he was a third-degree black belt, but I’m sure he knew enough about martial arts to get by.
I also don’t think he taught a self-defense class at UM simply to meet women. Those women probably learned some valuable lessons from Garrison. But I bet he charmed a few of them into dates.
It was also funny that he was voted the best weatherman in Missoula, even though he had zero meteorologic training.
While this story gives people like Bill Foley a chance to yuck it up for tv, it’s actually quite troubling to read how con artists, like Garrison Courtney and Matt Marshall, wormed their way into the confidence of allegedly discerning government officials and private sector corporate business men.
Maybe it was Courtney’s actual membership with the Freemasons that helped him sell his con:
For K.B., the first inkling that something was amiss came in the fall of 2012 as he was putting together a business plan for a cybersecurity startup focusing on national security issues. K.B., who was still on the payroll at his defense contractor job, asked Courtney to review the documents for his new venture.
After a month or so, Courtney texted with good news. He said he wanted to introduce K.B. to Curtin Winsor Jr., a former U.S. ambassador to Costa Rica, whom Courtney claimed to know from the Freemasons, where he had been active for years. (The Daily Beast has seen the texts and emails between Courtney and K.B.)
…
Despite the progress, K.B. had a nagging feeling about the situation. Instead of offering a $1 million equity investment, the ambassador wanted to give K.B. a $10 million loan at a 1 percent interest rate, which didn’t make sense for someone looking for a tax shelter.
Plus, K.B. and the ambassador had not yet met in person. Winsor explained that he believed in Courtney, and since Freemason rules forbade him to give money directly to other members, he figured he would do the “next best thing” and invest in one of his friends.
I’m not sure what it is about Big Sky country that seems to make this state a target-rich environment for grifters and conmen, but I’ve written about a handful of them over the years, like Jason Stevens who ran Glacier Hope Homes, Surajit Khanna’s weird presence in the Bitterroot, and Aaron Wagner’s alpha-con BEFORE he was arrested by the FBI. I guess I’ll add Garrison Courtney’s name to this distinguished list.
While local media has helped many of these conmen establish their false credibility by giving uncritical attention to them in the beginning, as they’re selling the public their bullshit, my track record is one of EXPOSING this kind of bullshit, not perpetrating it, so if you’re inclined to support a citizen journalist with proven results, consider donating to my new GoFundMe page.
And, as always, thanks for reading!