Native American Press / Ojibwe News (Bemidji, Minnesota), 1996-05-24

              Corruption has deep roots in White Earth
Reservation said to make $50 million annually
By Gary Blair
The federal corruption trial of
White Earth tribal chairman, Darrell
"Chip" Wadena's gang continued to
unfold this week at the federal
courthouse in St. Paul, Minnesota.
On Wednesday, Henry Moller of
Bemidji, the Certified Public
Accountant who came under fire
during the Finngate trial for not
reporting the conflict of interest of
then state senator Harold "Skip"
Finn's phony insurance scam, was on
the stand for more than four hours,*
As before, Moller's testimony was
full of double talk and voluntary
answers that brought a warning from
U.S. District Court Judge, Michael J.
Davis. "I want to caution you to only
answer when you're asked a
question," Davis told the nervous
Moller.
Moller testified that the White
Earth reservation receives more than
$50,000,000 in annual revenues from
three different sources: Casino
proceeds, tribal businesses, and State
and federally funded programs.
Moller also testified that the band's
attorney Peter Cannon, helped draft
the business agreements between
Clark and Wadena. He likewise stated
that Cannon was involved in forming
the reservation's so-called fishing
commission, which later gave the.
gang members federal tax breaks and
fake meeting payments. In his
testimony, Moller said that all tribal
council members received fish
commission payments.
White Earth enrollee Mike Swan,
who ran the reservation's fishery
program for over six years, also took
the stand on Wednesday, he said, he
never knew of any fishery
commission and that's what he had
told federal investigators.
■Ron Cook, the casino's manager
was the last one on the stand on
Wednesday. He told of his
involvement with the reservation's
gaming commission—also made-up
of same the White Earth tribal council
members—which also received
payments for those meetings.
When the PRESS asked Cook how
Corrupt cont'd on 5
Federally-recognized fraud: A skeptical view
of the 1996 MCT elections
By Jeff Armstrong
As federal prosecutor Jeanne
Graham noted during opening
arguments in the landmark trial of
White Earth tribal officials and their
subordinates, the most recent
reservation election was "a fraud," in
which hundreds of votes were
unlawfully cast for incumbent
officials.
In fact, Graham argued, the theft of
White Earth elections in 1990 and
1994 was an integral part of a
conspiracy to steal hundreds of
thousands of dollars in reservation
funds.'To control the cash box, you
have to control the ballot box, and
they did that through [election board
chair] Carley Jasken," said Graham.
"The tribal elections involving [RBC
member Rick] Clark and [secretary
treasurer Jerry] Rawley were anything
but legitimate."
The United States is now trapped—
or, more correctly, has tribal members
trapped—in an irreconcilable
contradiction. On the one hand, the
Government is declaring the elections
it has examined as invalid and a
subject for criminal prosecution. Yet
on the other, it continues to recognize
those same indicted officials as the
"duly elected" government with a
federally guaranteed stranglehold
over reservation elections and
economies.
As it has in nearly every tribal
election since 1988, the Bureau of
Indian Affairs this week stated that it
can take no steps to guarantee a fair
vote.The Bureau not only rejected
requests for election monitors, but
refused even to discuss allegations
that at least one reservation is
developing its own notary seals to
validate fraudulent ballots.
While certainly no surprise, the
BIA's continued inability or
unwillingness to do anything but
rubber-stamp the contrived election
results of a two-decade-long
dictatorship on White Earth should
raise serious questions about elections
scheduled for June 11 throughout the
six reservations of the Minnesota
Chippewa Tribe.
Chip Wadena, after all, dominated
the entire Tribe as president of the
MCT's Tribal Executive Committee
Fraud cont'd on
Bids were phony, witness says
He testified that official asked him to throw away paperwork
By Pat Doyle
Star Tribune Staff Writer
Prodded by a prosecutor, a reluctant
witness testified Tuesday that he
forged construction bids to help a
White Earth Tribal Council member
who is accused of illegally steering
a casino contract to his firm.
William Norris, a drywaller, said he
prepared two phony bids in February
1993 for the Shooting Star Casino, a
project 'actually completed in 1992.
Federal prosecutors accuse Council
Member Rick Clark of asking Norris
in 1993 to write bogus bids that were
inflated and backdated to make it
appear that Clark's drywall firm
deserved a contract for the casino.
But when prosecutors questioned
Norris about the November 1991 date
on the bids, he began to change his
account about when he prepared them
"I don't know what the dates are,"
he said.
That prompted a challenge from
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jerry
Wilhelm that ultimately elicited a
series of admissions damaging to
Clark, and possibly to Tribal
Chairman Darrell (Chip) Wadena
and Secretary-Treasurer Jerry
Rawley.
"Mr. Norris, whose been talking to
you?" Wilhelm asked.
"No one."
"Didn't you tell us and the
investigators that you prepared this
in 1993?"
"OK.... that's right. This was the
date I was asked to put on them," he
said, an apparent reference to
November 1991.
"Who asked you?"
"Rick did."
"He-asked you in 1993, didn't he?"
"Yes."'
"Is this bid completely fictitious,
sir?"
Clark, Wadena and Rawley are on
trial In U.S. District Court on trial oJ
charges of conspiracy, theft,
embezzlement bribery and money
laundering in connection with alleged
bid-rigging in the construction of the
Shooting Star in Mahnomen.
They say they could award contracts
to high bidders, handled the casino
project according to their
understanding of tribal independence
and never intended to break any laws.
Bids cont'd on 8
Tribal Sovereignty at issue in divorce
EL CAJON, Calif. (AP) _ A century-
old dispute over the sovereignty of
Native Americans has become an issue
in an otherwise simple divorce
involving an Indian and her non-
Indian ex-husband.
Florence Barrett, a member of the
Viejas Indian Band, has invoked tribal
sovereignty and refuses to make
spousal-support payments of $1,500
a month to her non-Indian spouse.
They had been married for 41 1/2
years.
Barrett, 66, claims that the state
court does not have jurisdiction to
divide her $4,000 monthly
disbursement from the tribe's casino
as well as two homes the couple owned
on the San Diego County reservation.
"He has no right to that money. It's
tribal money," said Sandra Barrett,
the couple's daughter, after a court
hearing Friday.
San Diego County Superior Court
Judge Eddie Sturgeon granted the
divorce but said he would rule later on
the spousal support issue.
Bobby Barrett, 64, calls his ex-
wife's claim a ploy to avoid payment.
He says he lives on a disability pension
of less than $800 a month.
"This is no Indian case," said
George Schultz, his lawyer. "This is
just another woman, who happens to
be an Indian, who doesn't want to pay
support."
Attorneys for the Viejas tribe, which
has a lucrative casino on its
reservation, are watching the case
closely because it could end up as an
infringement by the state on the Indian
sovereignty, they say.
Federal courts have traditionally
held jurisdiction over disputes
involving Indian reservations.
In Friday's divorce hearing,
Florence Barrett's attorney, Robert
Bowers, cited laws dating back to
1888 to bolster her case.
Bowers also argued that a Superior
Court, a branch of the state, does not
have authority over the assets of tribes
and tribal members. Bobby Barrett
"doesn't have any right to ask this
court" for his wife's tribal money,
Bowers told the judge.
Florence Barrett has been twice
ordered to make payments to her
estranged husband. In April 1995,
she was ordered to pay him $1,000 a
month. The amount was increased to
$1,478 in December.
In a Dec. 7 deposition, she argued
that she should not have to pay the
money because her casino
disbursements are a "royalty," not
income.
Corruption has deep roots in White Earth
Federally-recognized fraud: '96 MCT elections
Bids were phony, witness says
Tribal Sovereignty at issue in divorce
Voice of the People
i
New ways of counting could affect minority
populations
By Howard Goldberg
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) _ The
nation's fast-growing Hispanic
minority and already small American
Indian population would both shrink
significantly if the government makes
suggested changes in the way it counts
people, a major study found.
A federal survey of nearly 60,000
households found adding a
"multiracial" category cut the number
of people calling themselves
American Indian and Alaskan natives,
reducing their numbers from about 1
percent of respondents to three-
quarters of a percent.
Making Hispanic origin a category
listed alongside white and black
reduced the estimate of that population
even more dramatically. It went from
nearly 11 percent _ roughly the same
as the black population _ to as little as
7.5 percent.
Ruth McKay, a researcher with the
federal Bureau of Labor Statistics,
presented the findings this weekend
at the annual conference of the
American Association for Public
Opinion Research.
The federal government has been
struggling for several years with
criticisms of the way it asks people
about their race and ethnic
background. Couples in interracial
marriages, for example, complain that
their mixed-race children have no
appropriate category to check off on
many official forms.
The bureau tried some variations in
■ a supplement to the May 1995 Current
Population Survey, which combines
telephone and personal interviews of
a nationally representative sample to
measure the monthly unemployment
rate.
Half the families were asked the
Hispanic question before the race
question; the other half got a single,
combined Hispanic origin-race
question. Half of each half also was
given the option of choosing
"multiracial."
The new multiracial category did
not significantly affect the black
percentage, but instead drew people
away from the categories for
"something else" and Indian. That
could affect the Bureau of Indian
Affairs' funding, McKay said.
Count cont'd on
Native
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News
We Support Equal Opportunity For All People
Founded  in 1988
Volume B   Issue 32
May 24, 1996
1
A weekly publication.
Copyright, Native American Press,  1996
Photo by Michael Paul
Mixed Blood Theatre's recent production of According to Coyote featured Victor Toman.
Mighty fall to Indian editor His newspaper's
crusade to end tribal corruption can get lonely
By Doug Grow
Star Tribune
Skip Finn is a former state senator,
awaiting sentencing for his part in
stealing from Leech Lake Chippewa
in an insurance scam.
Tig Pemberton is former chairman
of the Leech Lake Chippewa awaiting
sentencing for working with Finn to
steal from the people of Leech Lake.
Chip Wadena is chairman of the
White Earth Chippewa, currently in
federal court being tried on an array
of corruption charges.
A common denominator in the
downfall of these once influential
Minnesotans? A soft-spoken man
named Bill Lawrence, the most
tenacious newspaper publisher in the
state.
Lawrence publishes the Native
American Press, a weekly newspaper
with one full-time reporter, a prolific
fellow named Gary Blair, and a
circulation of just 5,000. Lawrence's
little paper, probably unknown by
most non-Indians in Minnesota, was
uncovering dirt on the likes of Finn,
Pemberton and Wadena well before
federal authorities began digging. In
fact, it probably was headlines in the
Native American Press that
encouraged them to dig.
Given the important work that
Lawrence's newspaper has done, you'd
figure he'd be a cultural hero among
journalists and Indians. But it turns
out that being a crusader can be lonely
work.
Mainstream journalists and public
officials look at the Native American
Press with skepticism, because its
rather flexible rules when it comes to
such traditional journalistic basics as
fairness and accuracy.
"You have to know how to read the
Native American Press," said one
federal official. "After a while, you
learn how to separate the facts from
the advocacy."
Lawrence, who lives in Bemidji and
is running for the Legislature as a
Republican, doesn't apologize for his
newspaper's approach. "This is more
than a newspaper," he says. "This is
an instrument of change."
The Indian establishment, which
includes large numbers of white
bureaucrats, lawyers and business
people who are profiting from the
Editor cont'd on 3
Despite delayed spring spearers doing well
By Robert Imrie
The walleye catch during Chippewa
spearfishing this spring is
approaching a record despite a late
thaw in northern Wisconsin.
Through Sunday, the state's six
Chippewa bands had speared 27,831
walleye, or2,418fewer than the record
set last year, said Steve Hewett, treaty
fisheries coordinator for state
Department Natural Resources.
Tribal spearfishing generally begins
in mid-April when the ice melts off
about 200 off-reservation lakes in the
north and walleye move to shallows
to spawn.
But a cool spring this year kept ice
on many lakes well into early May,
delaying spearfishing for at least two
weeks in most places.
The number of days for ideal
spearfishing was close to normal,
however, because lakes melted slowly,
from southern to northern regions,
allowing spearfishermen to hit each
of them, Hewett said Monday.
If the weather would have suddenly
heated up, Hewett said, the limited
number of spearers would have been
unable to get to as many lakes.
"We still had the same length of
time from the first ice-out to the last
ice-out," he said. "It is surprising in
that we thought the lakes would go
out more quickly once spring
happened."
So far, just one Chippewa band, the
St. Croix, have officially notified the
DNR that its spearfishing season was
finished, Hewett said.
On Sunday, spearers for only one
band, the Lac du Flambeau, went out
on three Vilas County lakes, Big Sand,
Long and North Twin, and took 761
walleye, he said.
Off-reservation spearfishing
resumed in 1985 under treaty rights
upheld in federal court rulings.
Last year, spearers took 30,249
walleye. The average catch over the
years has been about 25,000 walleye.
A breakdown of the walleye speared
this spring, through Sunday, by each
Chippewa band:
Lac du Flambeau _ 14,645.
Mole Lake _ 3,809.
Bad River _ 3,087.
Lac Courte Oreilles _ 2,461.
Red Cliff _ 1,970.
St. Croix _ 1,859.
Self-proclaimed shaman sentenced for sex abuse
ST. PAUL (AP) _ A 31-year-old
Vadnais Heights man who claimed to
be an American Indian spiritual
adviser _ or shaman _ has been
sentenced to 12 years in prison for
sexually abusing three girls.
Jeffrey D. Wall had pleaded guilty
to three counts of third-degree sexual
conduct.
At the sentencing hearing in
Ramsey County District Court
Thursday, the three 14-year-old girls
and their parents claimed Wall used
the girls' interest in Indian culture to
gain their confidence and had sex
with them underthe guise of American
Indian spiritual rituals.
"I got to the point where I couldn't
even think or feel unless it was for
him," one girl said. "Mr. Wall raped
my childhood."
Judge Kathleen Gearin said she had
rarely seen such manipulation and
will recommend he undergo sexual
offender treatment.
Wall expressed no remorse. He told
Gearin, "I feel that I've done more
good in the world than bad."
He must serve at least eight years
before he is eligible for parole.
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