The Ojibwe News / Native American Press (Bemidji, Minnesota), 1998-01-02

              Casinos viewed as target for money
laundering
By Gary Blair
Indian and riverboat gaming were
suspected to be the next targets for
money laundering schemes,
according to a Jan. 4, 1996 report
issued by the United States General
Accounting Office (GAO) in
Washington, D.C.
"Money laundering is the use or
conversion of money gained from
illegal activity, such as drug
smuggling, as to money that appears
legitimate and whose source cannot
be traced to the illegal activity. Law
enforcement officials have estimated
that between $100,000 billion and
$300 billion in U.S. currency is
laundered each year," the report
states.
The findings were addressed to the
Sam Nunn, ranking Minority member
of the U.S. Senate's Permanent
Subcommittee on Investigations,
Committee on Governmental Affairs.
The GAO report was signed by Laurie
E.  Ekstand, associate director,
Admininsration of Justice Issues.
The report begins: "Dear Senator
Nunn: The Subcommittee has been
reviewing new trends in money
laundering activities as well as the
government's ability to confront
them. This work has indicated that
improved compliance with the Bank
Secrecy Act of 1970 (BSA) by
financial institutions has forced many
money launders to find other means
of disguising their illicit proceeds. In
your request letter, you expressed
concern about the use of the nation's
"There have been both new
legislation and recent changes to
existing federal regulations that will
affect currency transaction reporting
for casinos. We have included
information on these changes in this
report. The report also makes a
recommendation to the Secretary of
the Treasury regarding efforts to deter
money laundering in casinos."
The report says legalized gaming is
and has expanded rapidly across the
United States. Currently, 48 states
permit some form of legalized
'97 brought few changes, pg. 4
Casinos and money launderers, pg. 1
Court affirms First Amendment, pg. 1
Massacre in Chiapas, pg. 3
FDL propaganda contradictory, pg. 5
LL General Council resolutions, pg. 8
Voice of the People
3
e-mail, presson@bji.net
growing gaming industry to launder   gaming. Two areas of notable growth
illicit profits.
"In response to your request, we are
reporting on: the extent of legalized
gaming in the United States,
especially that taking place in casinos;
currency   transaction   reporting
are riverboat and Indian gaming,
which includes casino and bingt.
operations. In 1991, nearly 60
riverboat casinos started operations.
In the last decade, Indian gamin:
operations grew from very few t■■
requirements for casinos; whether the about 237 individual operations- 11 ?
same reporting requirements apply to of them were reservation casinos
tribal casinos; and the level of of March 1995. The amount of cash
enforcement efforts to ensure that wagered annually in casinos, as
casinos are complying with currency _ .
transaction reporting requirements.      I 3rgei COfl t. pg. 6
The
Fifty Cents
Ojibwe
mews
Native
American
Political pressure alleged in housing
We Support Equal Opportunity For AH People
MUSKOGEE, Okla. (AP) _ Cherokee
Nation leaders have exerted political
pressure on a federally funded housing
improvement program to benefit their
families and constituents, a former
tribal official alleges.
Steve Woodall, former acting
director of the Cherokee Nation
Community Development program,
said he left the position because of
pressure from Principal Chief JoeByrd
and some tribal councilors to bypass
federal restrictions.
"It was thinking that as elected
officials they pretty much had the
right to do what they wanted to do
with federal funds," Woodall told the
Muskogee Daily Phoenix.
In one case, the non-Indian mother
of tribal councilor Chuck Hoskins
received more than $22,500 in repairs
on her home under a U.S. Department
of Housing and Urban Development
program for American Indians, the
newspaper reported.
Hoskins said his mother was entitled
to the help because she was married to
his full-blood Cherokee father "for
53 years and raised three Indian
children."
But Tahlequah attorney Nate Young
III disagreed. Young represents Indian
housing authorities for five tribes,
including the Cherokees.
"In my opinion, that's a
misappropriation of funds. That's all
there is to it. The question is if there
was fraudulent intent to
misappropriate funds," he said.
HUD guidelines also call for no
more than $20,000 to renovate any
one home under Community'
Development Block Grant funds. Tht,
tribe had to reimburse the federai
program for overspending on homes
in fiscal year 1996, Woodall said.
Tribal officials declined to say
exactly how much was spent on
Sammie Hoskins' home, except that i
was more than $22,500.
A Community Development
committee approved the project. The
committee, set up by Byrd, included
Hoskins and Councilors Bill Bake;
and Jiggs Phillips and a tribal socia
worker. Hoskins said he did not vote
on renovations for his mother's home
The committee previously making
such decisions was made up only o
Community Development employees
Byrd cont. pg. 6
Volume IS Issue 11
Hi
January 2,1888
A weekly pubficatnn.
Copyright Native American Press, 1897
Affadavit: BIAofficial intervened in Cherokee
Nation dispute
BvKellvKurt
Associated Press
TULSA, Okla. (AP) _ A federal
prosecutor suspected the Bureau of
Indian Affairs altered an agreement
early in the Cherokee Nation crisis at
the request of Chief Joe Byrd,
according to an unsigned affidavit
sent to the Justice Department.
The draft affidavit attributed to
former. U.S. Attorney John Raley
states that his discussions with the
BIA led to an agreement in April for
the agency to assume all tribal law
enforcement duties.
But days later, the document said,
Deputy Assistant Secretary for Indian
Affairs Hilda Manuel altered the
agreement and said that the BIA could
not enforce tribal court orders, which
included arrest warrants linked to an
investigation of Byrd's office.
"Based on the information available
to me at that time, I suspected that the
BIA may have taken this change in
position upon a request by Principal
NIGC avoided
partner due to
By BRAD GOLDSTEIN and JEFF
TESTERMAN
St. Petersburg Times
Staff Writers
The National Indian Gaming Commission was created to regulate Indian
gambling. Lobbying on behalf of Indian tribes is not supposed to be part
of the job.
Yet the commission recently tried to
broker a deal on behalf of the Seminole Tribe of Florida to legalize full-
scale casino gambling across the state.
"They're not regulators, they're
cheerleaders," said John Glogau, an
assistant Florida attorney general who
was part of those discussions.
In recent years, a growing number
of people — including former NIGC
employees — have taken issue with
the close relationship between the
agency and those it is supposed to
oversee.
One former chairman resigned after
it was revealed that he accepted donations from a lobbying group. Questions were raised at a Senate hearing
about a commissioner's relationship-
with an Indian gambling company
lobbyist. And the agency's new executive administrator was a lobbyist
for one of the six Indian tribes at the
Chief Joe Byrd to Hilda Manuel," the
document quotes Rale\
Raley, who retired in August, said
he could not comment on the accuracy
of the affidavit without clearance from
the Justice Department.
Tulsa attorney Chuck Shipley
submitted the document to Justice
Department lawyers in an attempt to
get clearance to take a full deposition
from Raley, who tried last summer to
negotiate an end to the Cherokees'
political dispute.
"I have read his correspondence,"
Raley said Monday. "I've read his
affidavit. He (Shipley) and I have had
a number of discussions."
Byrd said that he never contacted
Manuel about keeping the BIA from
enforcing orders of the Judicial
Appeals Tribunal. BIA police took
over law enforcement duties in April
as confl ict between the court and Byrd
escalated and divided the tribe.
"They were just to come and assume
law enforcement from what I
remember," Byrd said Monday.
A BIA spokesman was not aware of
the draft affidavit and said he ci
)wimeo1 *;.
The document states that discussions
with the BIA on or around April 16
led Raley to understand the agency
would assume all tribal law
enforcement duties. The agreement
was changed to exclude tribal court
orders without his consultation or an
explanation, the affidavit says.
Byrd and four council members
reached a peace accord Aug. 25 with
U.S. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt
to end the infighting.
Shipley, who has represented the
tribunal judges during the dispute,
wants Raley's deposition as part of a
motion for attorney's fees. He
contends the Babbitt agreement
resulted from action he brought
unsuccessfully against the BIA in
federal court in Washington, D.C.
Fees could be reimbursed "if you
can show you are a significant factor
in causing the federal government to
modify the position you complained
of even if the case was dismissed, he
said.   '
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is shown with his painting entitled "Stone People"
MN Appeals Court upholds free speech
By Jeff Armstrong
The Minnesota Court of Appeals
overturned the conviction of two
youths arrested last year for swearing
at Duluth police officers, ruling that
their comments were protected under
the First Amendment right to free
speech.
Quoting a previous court ruling, the
court said the St. Louis County
conviction of one of the boys was
invalid because he "merely
expresse[ed] a controversial political
opinion in a vulgar way."
Identified in the ruling as J.L.W., age
17, and M.A.H, age 15, the juveniles
were charged with disorderly conduct
after verbally objecting to a police
order to disperse from the scene of a
James Hansen's arrest report, J.L.W.,
a Native youth, asserted that "We can
be here if we f***in' want to do!"
The 15-year-old was then arrested
for angrily responding to J.L.W.'s
arrest, using language liberally
interspersed with profanities.
While the state had argued that the.
boys' comments were aimed at
provoking the police and other youths
present to violence, the court found
no evidence in the juvenile court
proceedings to support such a
contention.
"The supreme court has narrowed
the reach of the disorderly conduct
statute by stating that a prohibition on
language arousing 'alarm, anger or
resentment' is overbroad and vague,"
wrote judge Willis in the court's
J.L.W.'s words as 'likely' to provoke
20 juveniles, many of them quite
young, who had already displayed a
tendency to avoid confrontation with
the police, into a violent reaction
against two fully armed officers in
squad cars or even to some form of
civil disobedience as the state
hypothesizes," the court stated.
"We therefore conclude that the
district court could not reasonably
find an objective likelihood that
J.L.W.'s actions would have an
immediate tendency to provoke
retaliatory violence or tumultous
conduct by either the police or the
children and hold that J. L.W's conduct
is protected under the First
Amendment."
probing mob ties of casino
regulator's tribe membership
center.of an ongoing campaign finance investigation involving Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt,
records show.
Federal auditors and court cases reveal other problems with the agency:
Meetings are held in secret, minutes
are not kept, requests for information
languish or go unanswered, attendance records are sketchy, travel expenses get reimbursed with little
documentation, and no guidelines
exist to prohibit employees from accepting industry perks.
Meanwhile, 45 percent of the 276
Indian gambling halls under NIGC's
jurisdiction do not abide by the law
— the casinos run by the Seminole
tribe among them. Those out of compliance either refused to supply an
independent audit, did not conduct
background investigations, operated
gambling devices such as slot machines without ,state approval, or
failed to pay required fees.
The Seminoles, for instance, have
never gotten required approval by the
NIGC of their contract with a private
company to run the Tampa bingo hall
despite regulations requiring them to
do so. Pan American & Associates has
run the Tampa hall since 1982.
"This is a tribal issue," said Buddy
Levy, general counsel for Pan Ameri
can. "One of the reasons that we feel
like we have such good relations with
the tribe is we never get involved in
any matters outside of the four corners of this building."
The NIGC last year rejected Seminole Management Associates' contract to run the tribe's Hollywood hall
because some of the company's shareholders did not pass background
checks.
SMA ran the hall for 17 years and
faced repeated allegations of corruption and mob influence.
"We always knew the mob was
there," said Florida Attorney General
Bob Butterworth, who was the sheriff of Broward County when the
Seminoles' Hollywood hall opened.
"We just couldn't prove it."
A California Department of Justice
report from the mid-1980s on Indian
bingo alleged a tie between a partner
in the company that ran the Hollywood hall and the Sebastian Larocca
crime family in Pittsburgh. A 1995
FBI document also showed a connection between the Seminoles' bingo
hall and the Larocca mob and the
Genovese crime family in New York
City.
Al La Manna, a 30-year FBI agent
Conflict cont. pg. 5
reported fight. According to officer   decision.   "[W]e cannot characterize
Ho Chunk leader will negotiate separate
compact with Wisconsin governor
current facilities, but to go off The dog tracks at Hudson, Kenosha
reservation I think is going to present and Lake Geneva are the only ones
a situation that's quite foreign to the   left in the state. Greyhound tracks in
By Sharon Theimer
Associated Press
MADISON, Wis. (AP) _ The Ho
Chunk Nation opposes moves by other
tribes to open casinos at dog tracks
andwon'tbackagambling agreement
that nine tribes plan to propose to the
governor, atribal leader said Monday.
Ho Chunk President Jacob Lone
Tree said he doesn't know if off-
reservation casinos will be part of the
proposal that at least nine of
Wisconsin's 11 tribes plan to give to
Gov. Tommy Thompson by Dec. 30.
But Lone Tree said the Ho Chunk
Nation opposes efforts by some of
those tribes to open casinos at
Wisconsin's struggling dog tracks and
will negotiate with the governor on its
own.
"The reason why the Ho Chunk
Nation has decided not to be a part of
the united concept is because they're
treaty issues, and their issues are
different from the Ho Chunk's, and
we are sovereign nations "he said.
The Ho Chunk Nation considers
off-reservation gambling a sensitive
issue, Lone Tree said. The tribe's
research shows that most Wisconsin
residents oppose it, he said in a
telephorft interview. ,
"I think we'd like to expand our
picture right now as it relates to tribes
and gaming," Lone Tree said.
Lone Tree said his tribe's top priority
is to "obviously renew the current
compacts as they are." He declined to
specify what else the tribe might seek.
Thompson's office plans to schedule
a meeting between the governor and
Ho Chunk leaders, Thompson
spokesman Kevin Keane said.
Seven-year tribal gambling
compacts with the state begin expiring
in August.
The Ho Chunk's compact expires in
1999. The tribe has casinos in Lake
Delton, Nekoosa and Black River
Falls.
Three Chippewa bands _ the Red
Cliff, Lac Courte Oreilles and Mole
Lake bands _ want to open a casino at
the struggling St. Croix Meadows
greyhound track in Hudson.
The Menominee tribe is seeking to
open a casino in the Dairyland
Greyhound Park in Kenosha.
Last week, the Oneida and St. Croix
Chippewa tribes, who opposed the
Chippewa effort, signed a letter to the
governor supporting the Menominee
and Chippewa proposals, the
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported
Saturday.
Kaukauna and Wisconsin Dells
already have closed.
Menominee Chairman
Apesanahkwat did not immediately
respond to a message left at his office
Monday by The Associated Press
seeking comment on Lone Tree's
remarks.
Oneida Chairwoman Deborah
Doxtator said last week that at least
nine of the state's 11 tribes were
working on a compact proposal they
will give to Thompson by Dec. 30, as
he requested.
. Doxtator said she was unsure
whether the Ho Chunk and
Menominee tribes would sign on.
Oneida officials declined to
comment Monday on Lone Tree's
statements.
Thompson has threatened to shut
down the casinos if tribes fail to reach
agreements with him soon.
The governor wants the state lo get
a bigger share of income from tribal
casinos. Thompson has said 20 issues
must be part of compact negotiations,
including land, air and water rights.
Lone Tree said that like the other
tribes, the Ho Chunk oppose any
attempt to add non-gaming issues to
the compacts.