Spilyay tymoo., November 13, 2013, Page 9, Image 9

Spilyay Tymoo, Warm Springs, Oregon
N ovem ber 13, 2013
Guilty plea in murder case
Curtis L. Brown, 39,
pleaded guilty to second
degree murder last week.
Brown was charged in
the September, 2012, mur­
der of Jonas Miller, 33, of
Warm Springs.
At the same hearing last
week, in an unrelated case,
Brown also pleaded guilty
to accessory after the fact
in the first-degree murder
of Faron Kalama, who
was 30.
The two suspects
charged in her death are
Tana C. Lawrence and
Angeledith S. Smith. Their
trial in the case is set for
February 2014.
Sentencing for Curtis
Brown in the second-de­
gree murder, and acces-
Refund
sory-after-the-fact charges is
set for February 19. He faces
from 20 years to life for the
crimes.
The prosecutor in the
case gave a narrative of the
events of September 23,
2012:
On that day, Brown was
driving through the Elliott
H eights neighborhood,
when Jonas Miller flagged
him down to ask for a ride.
Mr. Miller offered to sell
Brown a Norinco SKS mili­
tary rifle and he agreed to
buy it, according to the nar­
rative.
“The two men drove off
to test fire the weapon.
Brown was drinking heavily
when he took the rifle from
Miller and pointed it at the
back of Miller’s head.
He wasn’t sure whether
the rifle was loaded,
G abriel said, b ut he
pulled the trigger any­
way,” according to the
narrative.
Mr. Miller was killed
at the scene. His body
was found a few days
later.
A week later, Brown
assisted
Tana
C.
Lawrence and Angeledith
S. Smith in covering up
the alleged m urder of
Faron Kalama, who was
beaten to death. Brown,
Lawrence and Smith were
arrested for these crimes
in O ctober 2012, and
have been in federal cus­
tody since that time.
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¡(Continued from page 1)
The ordinance and agree­
ment provide for a refund to
¡the tribe of the pre-collected
state tax on cigarettes sold to
Indians on the Warm Springs
Reservation.
The state cigarette tax is
“pre-collected” because it is
paid by the off-reservation
cigarette wholesellers who
place a tax stamp on each
cigarette package, and then
sell them to reservation ciga­
rette retailers. The retailers
then include the tax in the
price of cigarettes sold to
their customers.
The inter-governmental
agreement is how the tribes
recover the state tax included
in the tax exempt cigarette
Sales to Indians on the reser­
vation.
The tribes’ cigarette refund
is based on a formula that
takes the average annual per
capita consumption of ciga­
rettes in Oregon multiplied by
the num ber o f enrolled
Warm Springs tribal mem­
bers multiplied by the Oregon
i cigarette tax rate per package.
For 2012 the Tribes refund
was $282,901.
This funding became of
great importance to the tribe
during the financing of the
Warm Springs k-8 Academy.
Due to the lack of a tax
base on the reservation, and
because the Tribal Constitu­
tion does not allow assets of
the tribes to be pledged as
collateral on loans, a steady
tax revenue such as the ciga­
rette tax refund is one of the
very few income streams of
the tribe that is flexible and
can be used against tribal bor­
rowing. The tribes used the
cigarette tax refund as secu­
rity and source of repayment
for the tribes’ share of the
school construction project.
Cover Oregon is a marketplace
for Tribal communities to find health
insurance and financial help to pay for it.
H e a lth C a re -
(Continued from page 1)
The tribal Managed Care
program would be able to bill
out more costs, resulting in
significant savings to the
tribes.
This would lead to im­
proved services at the clinic,
as more resources will be
available for expanded health
care procedures.
The goal for the tribes is
to sign up all eligible individu­
als between the ages of 0 and
65.
Visit the clinic or the Fam­
ily Resource Center for more
inform ation, and for help
with the sign-up process. A
toll-free number is also avail­
able for information: 1-855-
268-3767.
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