The Native American Press (Bemidji, Minnesota), 1992-02-07

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Banker suspected of cheating Creative Games
By Susan Stanich
A Rhode Island banker who
disappeared after contributing to the
ruin of dozens of lending institutions
apparendy cheated a Minnesota firm
that leases video gambling machines
to Indian reservations.
Banker Joseph Mollicone Jr.
became a partner in Creative Games
Technology Inc. in August 1990 after
meeting with chief executive officer
Kent Tupper and other firm partners.
Mollicone and two friends agreed to
invest $67,000 each, the Providence
Journal'reported recendy.
Creative Games leases hundreds of
video gambling machines to
tribally-owned casinos in Minnesota.
Mollicone's friends, Duro textile
heir Edward Ricci and millionaire
Paul Anjoorian, invested $200,000
in Creative Games that month,
documents show. But Mollicone
invested nothing; instead, he cashed
a $7,000 check the firm had given
him, Anjoorian said.
"He was supposed to come up with
his share and he never did,"
Anjoorian said by telephone this
week. "So we just cut him out."
The $7,000 was for quarterly IRS
taxes, Tupper said.
Tupper, attorney for the
six-reservation Minnesota Chippewa
Tribe, and Cyril Kauchick, president
of the Bois Forte Development
Corporation that manages Fortune
Bay Casino at Tower, are the two
Minnesotans in Creative Games.
The other four partners, including
Anjorrian and Ricci, are from
Providence. Edward D'Ambra works
for Gamma International, a satellite
bingo company that serves Fortune
Bay and 54 other locations
nationwide. Victor Collucci formerly
worked for GTECH, the world's
largest on-line lottery company; he
lobbied for state contracts in
Minnesota, Wisconsin and elsewhere,
and helped establish Fortune Bay. He
left GTECH in September to work
full time with Creative Games, a
GTECH spokesman said.
Mollicone owned or partly owned
42 businesses and "was perceived in
the high-flying '80s to be one of the
movers and shakers in Rhode Island
business circles," said Tom Connell
of the Rhode Island Attorney
General's office.
In one 48-hour period in September
1990, Mollicone had dealings with
two top aides to the Rhode Island
governor, the president of a powerful
deposit insurance company, the state
treasurer, a mob figure, the state's
largest bank and two money-
launderers, the Journal reported.
He disappeared before the usual
background checks required in
gambling businesses could be done,
Tupper said.
"Creative Games took all
appropriate steps to promptly sever
its relationship with Mr. Mollicone,"
he said. "He was a respected banker
and businessman at the time (we)
dealt with him."
Mollicone is accused of
embezzling $13.8 million from his
own Heritage Loan and Investment
Co., Connell said. The company
then collapsed, triggering the $1.2
billion collaose of the Rhode Island
Share and Deposit Indemnity
Corporation, or RISDIC. That
company insured dozens of other
banking institutions, which the
governor shut down when RISDIC
closed its doors, Connell said.
Investigators say Mollicone made
special loans to organized crime
figures and his bank laundered
money for the Cali drug cartel.
About $4 million apparently was
laundered through that bank, said
Assistant U.S. Attorney James Levy.
Investigators believe Mollicone
banked millions of dollars outside
the country in anticipation of his
flight. They also believe the mob
might have killed him for his action,
an investigator said.
Mollicone was last seen in
November 1990, when he boarded a
plane in Rhode Island rather than
meet with real estate partners to
whom he owed money. He has been
on the FBI's Most Wanted list and is
being sought on embezzlement and
other charges.
[Reprinted with permission from
the Duluth News-Tribune, Jan. 17,
1992.]
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Tribal task force to call
for overhaul of Bureau
Founded in 1991 Volume 1 Issue 11 February 7,1992	
Bush a prominent no-show at Indian Education Conference
Phoenix, Ariz. (AP) - An Indian
task force is set to call for an
overhaul of the Bureau of Indian
Affairs in a report to Congress.
The task force, which has been
meeting for about a year, will
recommend that Congress give
individual tribes the responsibility for
spending 87 percent of the
approximately $1.4 billion that
Congress appropriates annually to the
bureau. Tribes currendy have control
of 26.8 percent of the budget.
The task force plan also calls for
massive staffing cuts in the BIA.
Many of the Washington staffers
instead would become employees of
individual Indian tribes.
Some officials say the plan has a
good chance of being accepted by
Congress because the head of the
BIA, Ed Brown, is co-chairman of
the task force.
"It is so easy to say this is just
another reorganization.. . . The fact
is, we have had 36 tribal members
sitting around a table for a year,"
Brown told the Washington bureau
of The Arizona Republic this week.
The plan calls for Brown to
change his role from manager of all
educational, social, economic and
other Indian programs to being an
advocate for Indian issues on
Capitol Hill. Brown also would have
an elected board of Indian leaders as
advisors.
Daniel Tso, a Navajo Nation
delegate to the task force, said that
although many of the proposed
changes are administrative, Indians
will benefit from having decisions
about their reservations made by
local officials instead of in
Washington.
Tso said that at present area
supervisors have no authority to
make any decisions.
Although no members of Congress
have seen copies of the task-force
report, both Arizona senators,
Dennis DeConcini and John
McCain, who serve on the Senate
Select Committee on Indian Affairs,
said they are generally supportive of
the task force's goals.
Both said, however, that they
would like to see the BIA disbanded
altogether.
"I hope we will reach a point
where ever)' tribe will be able to
govern itself," McCain said.
DeConcini said he favors any
move to get more-direct funding of
Indian tribes.
"I trust the Native Americans to do
what is best for their people," he
said.
Leech Lake gaming payroll at $6 million
Leech Lake Reservation officials say casino-style gambling there will
provide a $6 million payroll. Reservation gaming director John
McCarthy said there are now 500 employees, which equates to an
average payroll of $6 million this year. Leech Lake started gaming in
1972 with a small pulltab operation. That expanded to bingo in 1976,
which employed 12 people. Now, major expansions are planned at two
Leech Lake facilities, including one at Walker that will feature a
90-room hotel. The expansions will add 200 to 300 more employees.
The other facility is at Cass Lake. McCarthy says gaming proceeds will
be used for such things as tribal education scholarships.
No Environmental Impact Statement
The Press has learned that there has been no evironmental impact
statement completed for the Shooting Star Casino in Mahnomen. The
casino is located within one-eighth mile of the Wild Rice River which
flows into the Red River then north into Canada. White Earth Camp
Justice protesters claim the council is pushing for tribal biologists to
push the impact statement thru. Construction has already been started
on the multi-million dollar project. Tribal and BIA officals were
unavailble for comment.
Treaty rights don't extend
to guides, ruling states
By Susan Stanich
A U.S. magistrate in Duluth has
ruled that Chippewas have no
treaty-protected rights to be guides
in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area
Wilderness.
While declining to address whether
treaty rights still exist in the
BWCAW, Magistrate Judge Patrick
McNulty wrote in a recent opinion that
the signers of the 19th century treaties
were protecting a lifestyle that did not
include commercial guiding.
Although treaty-era Chippewas
served as guides in exploration, it
wasn't until 20 years after the
treaties that they began guiding for
non-Indian anglers and hunters, he
added.
"The right of Indians to guide on
ceded land is not a treaty-preserved
right, but is a right of a different
nature possessed in common with
non-Indians," McNulty wrote.
The case arose last March when
Fond du Lac Reservation member
Bruce Savage was cited for using a
snowmobile to ferry his
angler-clients and equipment to
Lake Saganaga.
Federal judges in Wisconsin have
ruled that Chippewa hunting,
fishing, and gathering activities at
the time of the treaties can be
pursued today using modern
equipment. A federal judge in
Minnesota recently found the treaty
rights had not been extinguished by
subsequent federal law, but did not
address the use of modern
equipment.
The self-employed businessman in
Mendota, Minn., said he wanted to
pave the way for "an economy for
young Native Americans, who could
run their own guide boats,
transporting people in and out of the
BWCAW, and make $150 to $200 a
day. Working casinos does nothing
for our youth; it can't replace the
morale, the self-esteem and the
discipline that this treaty right would
remain."
Since Congress never attempted to
regulate Chippewa treaty rights
when it created the BWCAW,
Savage did nothing criminal when
he used the snow machine, his
attorney, Jerod Peterson of
Minneapolis, argued in court.
Congress certainly could make such
a law, but in its absence his client
was not guilty, he said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeanne
Graham argued that, just as treatied
commercial fishermen don't have
the right to fish the last fish, neither
does a treatied guide have the right
to destroy what is left of the "quiet
beauty of the wilderness."
Savage was sentenced Monday in
U.S. District Court in Duluth.
[Reprinted with permission from
the Duluth News-Tribune, Jan. 31,
1992.]
Brookings, S.D. (AP) - President
Bush snubbed prominent American
Indian spiritual leaders and
educators by not attending a national
conference on Indian education last
week, one South Dakota
conference-goer says.
"When he says he's the education
president, it's education for white
people," Barry Zephier, a member of
the Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux Tribe
and a student at South Dakota State,
said of the president.
"We respected him enough to
come to his conference. It shows his
priorities. Obviously, they're not
with Indian people.. .. This is what
(Bush) had to say to the Indian
people: T don't have time for you.'"
Zephier attended the White House
Conference on Indian Education last
Wednesday to Friday, along with
SDSU education professor Lowell
Amiotte, a member of the Oglala
Sioux Tribe.
Amiotte was one of South
Dakota's nine voting delegates.
Both Zephier and Amiotte said
many people were disappointed
Bush never showed up.
"It would have been nice," Amiotte
said, "but I've been busy myself."
But both also agreed that Bush
should get credit for setting up the
conference. Any presidential
attention is good for Indian
education, they said.
"We've been working on this
for 12 years," Amiotte said. "Sinte
Gleska College at Rosebud wrote
a letter to President Reagan
asking that (a conference) be
called."
Conference delegates passed
130 resolutions for Bush to
consider, Amiotte said. They dealt
with the responsibilities of the
federal government to honor
treaties and trusts with Indian
nations.
"The whole theme was to support
tribal and local needs," Amiotte said.
One resolution recommends
funding programs to train more
Indian teachers, school
administrators and counselors.
Another requests money to renovate
reservation schools and establish
regional resource centers to
coordinate data on student successes
and failures.
The delegates soundly defeated a
proposal to establish a national
Indian board of education, Amiotte
said. A national board would detract
from local tribal control of schools
and add another layer of
bureaucracy, he said.
Bridge's forgotten name resurfaces
By Susan Stanich
The bridge crossing the St. Louis
River from Duluth's Fond du Lac
neighborhood is a popular place.
Anglers settle under it to cast for'
walleyes. Daring swimmers jump
off it. Canoeists glide under it,
hooting into the echoing recesses qfj
the looming concrete. Teen-agers"
climb inside it, scaring bats away.
Motorists, horse riders, bicyclists
and joggers use it in a more
conventional way.
It's not likely that any of them
know its name.
Neither, apparently, does
officialdom: Although this gateway
to the Veterans Evergreen Memorial
Highway is known officially as
Bridge No. 6910, its actual name
appears to be Biauswah Bridge. At
least, that's what two lawmakers,
two city councils, two county boards
and several veterans' organizations
agreed to call it in the late 1980s.
Biauswah, born in 1690, was a
Chippewa war chief who, from his
home base near where the bridge
now stands, mobilized thousands of
fighters to expand Chippewa
territory to the Aitkin and Mille Lacs
areas.
He's the first veteran in recorded
history in the area, and his war-chief
father, also named Biauswah, had
given himself up to free his young
son from the enemy. So the name
seemed an honorable one to bestow
on this veterans' highway bridge.
William Houle, a veteran and the
former chairman of Fond du Lac
Reservation, and Greg Price,
formerly of Wrenshall and an
advocate-activist to dedicate
Minnesota Highway 23 to veterans,
got the ball rolling in early 1986.
Both felt Indian veterans - of all
tribes and of all wars, including
those whose nations fought against
the federal government - could be
honored in naming the bridge for
Biauswah.
Sen. Florian Chmielewski,
DFL-Sturgeon Lake, picked up the
ball, and resolutions supporting the
measure were passed by the Duluth
and Superior city councils; the
Douglas and St. Louis County
boards; Minnesota AmVets;
AmVets Post 27; West Duluth
American Legion Post 71; and VFW
Post 137. The VFW Eighth District
sent a letter of support. The
Minnesota Department of
Transportation offered its help and
suggested the next steps, such as
securing a site for the plaque.
But someone had to carry the ball
further and Houle left office in 1988.
So the bridge never got an official
name.
"It probably got mixed in the
shuffle," said Duluth City Councilor
M. George Downs. "Everybody
expects somebody else to follow
through on it."
Current Fond du Lac Chairman
Robert Peacock agreed. The idea got
lost in the heat of more pressing
governmental matters, he said.
In the meantime, two things
occurred that prompted a Fond du
Lac Reservation member to revive
the matter: the Persian Gulf war and
the 500th anniversary of Columbus
sailing to the Americas.
Jerry Ojibway's brother Gordon
was injured in the war and received
a Bronze Star. And President Bush
has named 1992 the Year of the
American Indian, partly because
"American Indians have served in all
Wars . . . often serving in greater
numbers than the population as a
whole."
"So this is the year to make it
happen," Ojibway said. "Fond du
Lac is the only American Indian
governing body in the area, so we
should do it."
Ojibway said he will propose his
plan to Fond du Lac officials at their
regular meeting.
There are two ways to name a
bridge, said John Bray, a Duluth-
based spokesman for the Minnesota
Department of Transportation. If a
simple, green-and-white highway
sign is all that's wanted, a letter of
request from the appropriate
governmental body, resolutions and
historic background are sent to the
department. And the agency puts up
a sign.
But the value in naming a bridge
usually is in spreading the word
about why it's got the name. Bray
said. For that, a historical plaque and
dedication ceremonies are needed.
That can be expensive, because it
includes making room for cars to
pull off the highway so motorists
can read the plaque.
"Obviously, there's a good spot in
the Chambers Grove Park area," he
said. "But we would have to have
communication from the city of
Duluth, because they own the land,
and that hasn't happened. And we
have never had any correspondence
with the Fond du Lac Reservation
Business Committee."
[Reprinted with permission from
the Duluth News-Tribune, Jan. 29,
1992.]
Indian educators want more control 	
• White House conference drafts proposals for change to be given Bush
Indian Education
goals in the
year2000
• Tribal education
departments will
have greater control
and responsibility for
education on their own
reservations.
• More money will be
available to tribal
community colleges
and schools with large
Indian enrollments.
• Schools will teach
Indian culture and
languages in class.
By Tony Lone Fight
Indian educators are saying they
want more control over the
education of their Indian students. In
what might be the first White House
Conference on Indian Education,
Indian educators voiced their
opinions and drafted resolutions for
President Bush.
Almost all the resolutions contained
language that reaffirmed tribal
sovereignty and local control over
education. Money also was a key
issue, with many resolutions calling
for Congress to make good on
educational promises made years ago.
A key example was the Tribally
Controlled Community Colleges Act
of 1978. The act originally called for
tribal community colleges to receive
$5,820 per Indian student, but
community colleges never received
that amount. It currently hovers
around $3,000 and has been as low
as $1,900 per student, said Carol
Davis, acting president for the Turtle
Mountain Community College.
Winona Fox, home school
coordinator of Four Winds tribal
school in Fort Totten, N.D., attended
the conference and said her top
priority is to bring the school,
parents and community together.
She agrees the tribal departments of
education are the future for
education on reservations.
"We know our needs, we're the
parents and grandparents, we know
the most important thing for
students," Fox said.
Davis was a delegate for North
Dakota and said the conference went
smoothly despite the differences of
the various Indian tribes present.
"It was amazing how much our
problems were similar throughout
the country," Davis said.
The conference is part of Bush's
America 2000 educational forum.
The recommendations will go to
Bush but some will require
congressional action.
Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, one
of the guest speakers at the
conference, called upon Indian
leaders and educators to push the
resolutions through Congress.
[Reprinted with permission from the
Grand Forks Herald, Jan. 30,1992.]
New clinic brings health care to Indians in St. Paul
By Pat Prince
St. Paul, Minn. (AP) -
Health-care posters with American
Indian themes brighten the walls of
the modest waiting room of the
recently opened American Indian
Health Clinic. Colorful hand-outs
and brochures decorated with
traditional Indian symbols offer
information on topics from diabetes
to AIDS and describe the risks of
tobacco, alcohol, and high blood
pressure.
For Lorraine DeGroat, the chore of
filling out a thick sheaf of medical
forms was eased by knowing that
her 4-year-old daughter would again
be treated in a clinic aimed
specifically at Indians.
It's more comfortable here," said
DeGroat, who brought Cassondra in
for an overdue immunization. "I feel
uptight in a great big hospital."
Clinic staffers hope she'll spread
the word. Three months after the
American Indian Health Clinic
opened in a former post office on St.
Paul's East Side, the clinic has seen
about 300 patients, many of whom
had foregone medical care during
the year since a previous Indian
clinic closed.
DeGroat discovered the closing in
December 1990, when she showed
up for an appointment at the old
Urban Indian Health Clinic in St.
'Paul's North End to find the doors
locked without explanation. After a
12-year struggle to provide services
to Indians and low-income patients,
the clinic had suddenly vanished
after financial crisis, diminished
services and apparent disarray led
the city and county to cancel
funding.
"There are a lot of bad feelings
about the way the closing was
handled," said DeGroat. Like
hundreds of other former patients,
DeGroat was left for months
wondering what had become of her
family's medical records until the
documents were turned over to the
city's Health Division.
"Community people have told me
that people are staying away because
they're afraid (the new clinic) ... is
related to the former St. Paul Urban
Indian Health Board," said Michael
Arfsten, executive director of the
American Indian Health Care
Association, which runs the new
clinic. "We're trying, in our
advertising and promotions, to make
it known that we're no relation."
Many of the former clinic's
creditors, who still are owed
between $138,000 to $149,000 and
include physicians and the IRS, also
have bad feelings. While a few have
sought and obtained court
judgments, most have written off
their losses.
The new clinic, which will receive
$212,431 this year from the city,
county, state, and the St. Paul
Foundation, charges on a sliding fee
scale for those above the poverty level.
So far, no one has qualified to pay.
Public officials and community
health providers regard the new clinic
as a fresh start and welcome the
return of culturally sensitive care.