News from Incji^n Country
$33M settlement
proposed in Navajo
trust fund lawsuit
By Paul Foy
Associated Press Writer
'SALT LAKE CITY— When
auditors looked at an oil-and-gas
royalty trust set up by Congress
to benefit Utah’s Navajo Indi
ans, they found $50 million had
disappeared or was squandered
on bribes, bad business deals and
payoffs.
Now, 18 years later, Utah’s
attorney general has agreed to
settle a lawsuit over the damage
for $33 m illion in taxpayer
money, echoing the federal
government’s recent decision to
settle a much bigger case over
Indian trust funds nationwide.
The Utah lawsuit accused the
state of failing to ensure royal
ties, paid by U.S. oil companies,
were properly spent, although
two Navajo investment groups
“were the real culprits,” said
Brian Barnard, lead attorney for
the Navajos’ class-action lawsuit.
T h o se gro u p s, w hich no
longer exist, loaned money to
their own board members and
to a New Mexico garment fac
tory that never opened. They
also underwrote a Lake Powell
marina that was swept away by
a flood; it was built on a known
flood plain.
“I think it’s to everyone’s ben
efit to make this work,” assis
tant Attorney General Philip Lott
said. The settlement awaits ap
proval by a federal judge and
Utah Legislature, which would
make four years o f payments
to settle the case.
Lott said the case has cost the
state millions of dollars to de
fend and could have cost mil
lions more if it had gone to trial.
The state never had proper
records, ac counting fo r the
money, Barnard said.
In 1991, the year before the
law suit was filed, the U tah
Legislature’s auditor general re
ported suspected self-dealing
and mismanagement by trust
fund officials. Federal criminal
indictments fallowed, alleging
bribery, conspiracy, fraud,
money laundering and misuse
o f tribal funds against seven
Navajo Nation leaders in Ari
zona.
Utah was accused of failing
in its duty as the trust’s fiduciary
— a role it never wanted and is
trying to shed.
It is asking Congress to ap
point another trustee — the N a
vajo Nation or one of its cor
porations.
For years, Utah has refused
to appropriate any but the most
essential trust funds.
Utah was supposed to ensure
the money was spent on reser
vation roads, health care and
“tuition of Indian children at
white schools,” according to a
federal statute.
“This agreement is in the best
interest of the citizens of Utah,”
A tto rn ey
G eneral M ark
Shurtleff said in a statement. “It
will bring money to the most
im poverished area o f our
state.”
Many on the Navajo reser
vation have no running water or
electricity, and unemployment
runs up to 50 percent.
The idea of setting aside the
state’s share o f oil and gas roy
alties for the Indians surfaced
when Congress decided to ex
pand the Navajo Reservation
from New Mexico and Arizona
into southeastern Utah, where
a number o f Navajo clans fled
when Kit Carson marched the
tribe into New Mexico in 1865.
Congress made it law in 1933.
But it wasn’t until oil and gas
companies started drilling in the
Aneth oil field about 30 years
later that Utah Navajos started
receiving a 37.5 percent royalty.
The remaining 62.5 percent goes
to the tribe, headquartered at
Window Rock, Ariz.
Page 7
Spilyay Tymoo
January 13, 2010
Woman’s battle long and costly
By Travis Coleman
Great Falls Tribune
G R E A T FALLS, M ont.
(AP) — Elouise Cobell grew
up hearing stories o f Native
Americans traveling dozens of
miles by wagon through waist-
high snow in hopes o f collect
ing payment for development
by others on their land.
Cobell, 64, recalls th a t
people on the Blackfeet Indian
Reservation would wait outside
the Old Agency for hours, only
to be told that no payments
would be issued and to come
back the next day. The checks
— sometimes for $1— would
arrive months later and some
times not at all.
T hese stories affected
Cobell at a young age and pro
vided inspiration through her
13-year lawsuit against the fed
eral government, which ended
with a historic $3.4 billion setde-
ment last month.
“When individual Indians
w ent to collect money, they
w ere trea ted su b h u m an ,”
Cobell said in a recent interview.
“That’s what drove me. I could
not tolerate that.”
Cobell’s rise from poverty to
becoming the face o f Indian
tru st reform has been well-
documented, making her some
thing o f a folk hero on the
Blackfeet Reservation — .and
in Indian Country.
Cobell learned about perse
verance early on, growing up
as the third youngest among
eight children on an isolated
patch o f land on the south end
o f the reservation in the 1950s.
They lived a poor life with
no running water or telephone,
but her parents taught the chil
dren to reach out and care for
others. She rem em bers her
mother telling her, “I expect to
raise strong daughters.”
“Everyone lived simple, the
basics o f life. You had nothing
extra,” Cobell said. “W hen I
look back, we didn’t have what
everybody else had, b u t we
didn’t know it.”
There were crises, such as a
car wreck that left her brother
“We knew we were right,
and they were wrong. I
never put that out of my
mind every time I came to
the table. The right has got
to win.”
—Elouise Cobell
a quadriplegic. But the family’s
philosophy kept them together
—- d o n ’t feel sorry for yourself
and keep going. Her brother
went on to become a painter
and other family members at
tended college.
Cobell’s parents established
a one-room school for their
children and neighbors to learn
in. Cobell soon began dream
ing o f a world outside the res
ervation, to one day wear the
fancy clothes she saw in weeks-
old editions o f the Sunday New
York Times that were delivered
to the school.
“I th ought ‘one o f these
days, I ’m going to be outta
here,”’ Cobell said.
G obell g rad u ated from
Valier High School and attended
business college in Great Falls.
After a stint in Seattle, she met
her husband and returned to
the B lackfeet R eservation,
eventually becoming the tribe’s
treasurer in 1976.
She then began hearing those
same stories about tribal mem
bers not receiving royalties for
the oil, gas, grazing, mining and
other development happening
on their properties, which were
held in trust by the U.S. gov
ernment.
T he agreem ent betw een
tribes and the federal govern
ment was that the government
would handle the leasing of
millions o f acres o f Indian-
owned land and then disperse
the generated revenue to the
owners.
Cobell
fo und
the
government’s records for tribal
trust accounts were in shambles,
making it hard to track how
much was owed. She tried to get
answers from the federal gov
ernment to questions asked by
tribal members but didn’t get
any response.
“We were treated like nobod
ies, even though it was our own
money. The people were treated
terrible,” Cobell said.
She added she initially didn’t
want to sue the federal govern
ment; she just wanted to fix its
trust accounting systems. How
ever, at that time government
bureaucrats had a habit o f ig
noring and demeaning those
who asked about trust account
ability, according to Cobell. And
she wasn’t the only tribal trea
surer who had questions.
“I just got tired o f it. The
only way I was going to make
sense o f it was to sue ‘em,”
Cobell said.
A legislative attempt to spur
tru st management reform in
1994 failed because o f a lack
of funding.
There also was no money to
put up a legal fight against the
government.
Cobell soon m et attorney
D ennis Gingold, who was a
banking attorney based in Wash
ington, D.C.. Gingold was sup
portive from the outset.
“(Gingold) gave up his entire
practice to work on this because
he thought it was the right thing
to do,” Cobell said. “He thought
the same way I did. It’s not an
Indian issue; it’s a banking issue.”
There also was help from the
Native American Rights Fund,
along w ith atto rn ey K eith
H arper and others from the
firm Kilpatrick Stockton LLP.
Along the way, Cobell would win
cash awards and grants that she
used to pay the attorneys.
What would be later referred
to as “the Cobell lawsuit” was
filed in 1996. Cobell was one of
five lead plaintiffs from tribes
across the nation. The other
plaintiffs would come to hear*
ings when they could, but Cobell
soon became the face o f the
case.
The plaintiffs sued the Bu
reau o f Indian Affairs, saying
the U.S. government failed to
properly manage Indian trust as
sets.
The hope was that the gov
ernment would fix its account
ing system and pay back-royal
ties to Native American land
holders.
The plaintiffs represented
present and past Indian trust
beneficiaries, including more
than 300,000 current Individual
Indian Money account holders.
Restitution would be in the
tens o f billions o f dollars, the
plaintiffs’ attorneys said then.
The odds were against the
small legal team, w hich was
dwarfed by the rows o f attor
neys representing the govern
ment during the hearings, Cobell
said.
But she remained confident.
“We knew we were right, and
they were wrong. I never put that
out o f my mind every time I
came to the table. The right has
got to win,” Cobell said.
There were big early victo
ries, such as when a federal judge
ruled that two cabinet-level sec
retaries were in contem pt o f
court for failing to produce ad
equate financial records for fed
eral trust funds.
T he p la in tiffs’ team also
proved the governm ent mis
managed and neglected trust
funds for more than a century.
“That was just the best for
me,” Cobell said.
Briefly
T he 5th C ircuit C ourt o f
Appeals in New Orleans over
turned the embezzlement con
victions of Isidro Garza Jr., his
W ICH ITA , Kan. (AP) — wife and one of his sons. The
Prosecutors have asked a fed trio had been among so-called
eral judge to dismiss an indict the “K ickapoo Seven” — a
ment against a fugitive charged group of tribal and casino em
in an immigration fraud scheme ployees from the Kickapoo Tra
by a Kansas group that claimed ditional Tribe of Texas accused
of stealing from the tribe’s small
to be an Indian tribe.
The governm ent says in a casino near Eagle Pass.
T he appellate court over
court document that the where
abouts o f Jorge Villareal are not turned the convictions because
known, and it is unlikely that he it said that U.S. District Judge
Alia Ludlum erred in transfer
will be apprehended.
- V illareal was one o f 11 ring the case to Waco, about 300
people charged in a scheme by miles from where the defen
the so-called Kaweah Indian dants, attorneys and witnesses
N ation that defrauded immi lived.
grants, approximately 12,000
across the U.S., by telling them
First American
that joining the tribe would give
Indian bishop dies
them U.S. citizenship.
A L B U Q U E R Q U E , N.M.
Villareal was charged with
seven counts, among them har (AP) — The nation’s first Na
boring illegal aliens, conspiracy tive American bishop died Jan.
to defraud and use of fraudu 7 at a Florida hospital from an
undisclosed illness, according to
lent documents.
the Roman Catholic Diocese of
Gallup. He was 64.
Court overturns
Donald Pelotte served for 18
Kickapoo decision years as bishop o f the diocese
SAN A N TO N IO (AP) — A that covers northwestern New
federal appellate court has over Mexico and northeastern Ari
tu rn e d the conviction o f a zona.
The diocese did not release
former tribal leader and his fam
details
about Pelotte’s illness. He
ily for allegedly stealing from a
tribal casino near the Texas- was admitted to a Ft. Lauder
dale hospital on Dec. 27.
Mexico border.
Feds drop charges
against fugitive in
fake tribe
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