Attorney General’s Office secures guilty plea from state prison inmate who viciously attacked correctional officers
HELENA – A Missoula man serving a life sentence in state prison for a 2017 double murder, in which he tried to dissolve victims in acid after fatally stabbing them, admitted to an attack on correctional officials that left one with a traumatic brain injury and broken ribs, Attorney General Austin Knudsen announced today.
Augustus Storm Standing Rock, 31, pleaded guilty today in Powell County District Court to one count of aggravated assault on a peace officer while in detention and three separate counts of assault on a peace officer. In exchange for his guilty plea, the Attorney General’s Office and the defendant have agreed to recommend a life sentence with a 40-year parole restriction, meaning Standing Rock will not be eligible for parole until 2063.
“Montana correctional officers risk their safety every day in order to enforce rules and keep order within our jails and prisons, and I am grateful for the work they do,” Attorney General Knudsen said. “This case, involving multiple correctional officers injured and a sergeant with a traumatic brain injury, should never have happened, but I am glad justice is being served. My office will continue to seek justice and protect the safety of the men and women working in correctional facilities.”
Leading up to the attack, Standing Rock tried to corrupt a Montana State Prison sergeant and the sergeant wrote him up. In retribution, on January 18, 2022, Standing Rock attacked the sergeant and other officers trying to subdue him. Standing Rock caused a traumatic brain injury and broke the ribs of the sergeant. Standing Rock attacked other correctional officers that came to the sergeant’s aid by biting, head butting, and punching them. Since the attack, that sergeant has been seeing a neurologist due to ongoing memory loss issues and migraines and to recover regular thought processes.
Standing Rock was serving his life sentence with the possibility of parole in the Montana State Prison after he admitted to fatally stabbing two people to death, dismembering both victims’ bodies, and trying to dissolve the body parts in tubs filled with acid in the basement of a Missoula home in August of 2017.
Assistant Attorney General Patrick Moody prosecuted the case, which was investigated by the Montana Department of Corrections Investigations Bureau.
The sentencing hearing is scheduled for August 8, 2023.
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