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Posted 4/11/2005 9:20 PM
Unfolding scandal tears at tribe with leading role
By Jill Lawrence,
USA TODAY
KINDER, La. — The Coushatta Grand Hotel and Casino Resort rises out of the marshy flatlands here like a misshapen, fluorescent-lit schooner in an ocean of parked cars. Along with riches, it has visited upon its namesake Indian tribe a leading role in a scandal unfolding nearly 1,300 miles away.
The Louisiana Coushatta tribe has about 800 members. The casino brings in $300 million a year. And in less than three years, the tribe paid $32 million to two Washington, D.C., insiders who are now being investigated by two Senate committees, the Justice Department, the FBI, the IRS and the Interior Department. The probes involve suspicions of fraud, money laundering and other crimes.
Members of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee and the panel's investigators say lobbyist Jack Abramoff and public relations consultant Michael Scanlon received $82 million from a dozen tribes with gambling interests. Last year, then-chairman Ben Nighthorse Campbell, R-Colo., and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who is now chairman, called Abramoff's and Scanlon's actions a way to exploit Indians' new wealth and the pair's ties to powerful figures such as House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas. Following the pair's instructions, the tribes also gave millions to political figures and groups, according to documents from the Indian Affairs investigation released by the committee.
The tribes were looking for higher visibility in Washington and more money from the federal government. They also wanted permission to run casinos and protection from potential competitors. So they hired Scanlon, a former top aide to DeLay, and Abramoff, a longtime DeLay associate and fundraiser.
Even in Washington, a city steeped in lobbying and debate over how much influence lobbyists do and should have, this case stands out. As the Indian Affairs Committee prepares to resume hearings this spring, unusual aspects of the case so far include: the huge profits Scanlon and Abramoff pocketed ($21 million apiece, according to the committee); the inexperience of the tribal clients; the names Abramoff and Scanlon called their clients in e-mails released by the committee ("monkeys," "morons," "losers" and "troglodytes"); and committee documents that suggest money laundering, fraud and other possible crimes
"Legislation is being marinated in money, and access is being marinated in money," says Marshall Wittmann, a senior fellow at the Democratic Leadership Council and a former aide to McCain. "It's inevitable that the lines were going to be crossed and then blurred and then obliterated."
As casino profits transform Indian economies, "there's been a hovering by enterprising people who would like to represent tribes," says Campbell, a Northern Cheyenne. "Where the hell were you when we were poor?"
A tribe divided
Here in southwestern Louisiana, the results of mixing money, naiveté and greed are on display. Coushatta leaders who raised questions about Abramoff and Scanlon, including successive secretary-treasurers Bertney Langley and Harold John, are arrayed against other leaders who authorized millions for unspecified services, including tribal chairman Lovelin Poncho. The fallout includes disputed recall efforts and resignations, alleged retaliatory firings and a continuing cash drain — this time to lawyers hired by tribe members ensnared in the controversy.
Several miles from the Coushatta casino, past catfish farms and fields of grazing cows and horses, is what amounts to downtown on the reservation. The 10 red-roofed buildings in Elton include a new gym and a medical clinic. The tribe operates a golf resort, a millworks and a horse ranch along with the casino, its cash cow. Four times a year, tribe members get checks, their share of the profits.
The tribe hired Abramoff and Scanlon to negotiate a gambling contract with the state. The two also were assigned to stave off bids by other tribes to get into gaming. Roy Fletcher, a spokesman for Poncho, says they also promised to prevent a new private casino nearby.
Abramoff and Scanlon enlisted prominent Republicans in and out of Congress to help the Coushatta. Two casino bids by competing tribes were thwarted. But the $365 million private casino is opening next month.
The pair held out promises of audiences with President Bush, Interior Secretary Gale Norton and members of Congress in exchange for contributions to groups and individuals, the Senate documents say. At one point, the tribe wrote a $185,000 check designated for an Abramoff "sports suite," or skybox, that some tribe leaders assumed would allow them to meet with influential people at games in and around Washington. But they never hosted anything or met with lawmakers, Langley says.
The millions the tribe paid for "professional services" and contributions offer glimpses of the capital's money culture. The documents show the Coushattas contributed $3.7 million from 2001 to 2003 to the American International Center (AIC), a think tank in Rehoboth Beach, a Delaware resort town. But mainly it was a cash conduit to Abramoff and others.
From May 2000 to May 2001, the Senate documents show, AIC checks for nearly $2 million went to consulting firm Century Strategies, owned by Ralph Reed, a former Christian Coalition leader and Bush campaign official now running for Georgia lieutenant governor.
Documents show direct Coushatta contributions went to, among others, anti-tax activist Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform ($25,000), DeLay's political committees (at least $45,000) and a business-oriented environmental group run by a former aide to Norton ($100,000).
The tribe also paid Scanlon more than a half-million dollars to spy on rivals trying to get into gambling and Coushattas suspected of sharing information. One was former council member Langley.
"I was even further outside the information and decision-making loop than I thought, since I certainly never approved" his own surveillance, Langley told McCain last year. "I would never try to betray my own tribe," he said in an interview.
Before he left in mid-2003, tribal controller Erick LaRocque sounded an alarm. The tribe had paid $32 million from 2001 to 2003 for "lobbying" expenses, he wrote in a memo to Langley; $24 million came from funds designated for health, housing and education. There was no plan to reimburse those funds, nor was there any money to do so.
Rift on the council
Several current and former members of the five-person tribal council say they tried to stop the spending but were thwarted by a three-member majority. "They were doing everything behind our backs," member Harold John says.
David Sickey, a young reformer elected in 2003, says the Washington pair's financial activities and name-calling were "pretty upsetting to me." But he reserves his harshest judgment for the three council members who kept paying and defending them.
"We have to make every attempt to show ... that tribes are capable of governing themselves," Sickey says. "These three individuals are not helping the cause."
The trio — Poncho, William Worfel and Leonard Battise — did not return calls for comment. Their attorney, David Pore, said they "absolutely" were misled by Abramoff and Scanlon. Asked why they didn't demand detailed invoices of what the tribe was getting for its money, Pore replied, "The level of sophistication was not there at that time. They've come a long way."
Poncho and Worfel praised Scanlon and Abramoff for nearly a year after the LaRocque memo. But in November, the tribe sued the Washington pair for the $32 million plus damages. The lawsuit alleges fraud and other wrongdoing.
Abbe Lowell, Abramoff's lawyer, said Abramoff "provided great results for the fees that were paid." Stephen Braga, Scanlon's attorney, calls the allegations "unfounded."
Local tensions continue as the legal battles play out. Poncho and Worfel resigned at a meeting of more than 100 tribe members last year. Then they rescinded their resignations. Then they and Battise fired a tribal elections official who was handling recall petitions.
The fired elections official is council member John's sister. And Battise is married to Langley's sister. "We all get together," Langley says. "But we don't talk politics."
Hmmm...I though the GOP was going to clean up the corruption in Washington. "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss." --The Who (Or even worse.)
"Some heads are gonna' role." --Judas Priest
Unfolding scandal tears at tribe with leading role
By Jill Lawrence,
USA TODAY
KINDER, La. — The Coushatta Grand Hotel and Casino Resort rises out of the marshy flatlands here like a misshapen, fluorescent-lit schooner in an ocean of parked cars. Along with riches, it has visited upon its namesake Indian tribe a leading role in a scandal unfolding nearly 1,300 miles away.
The Louisiana Coushatta tribe has about 800 members. The casino brings in $300 million a year. And in less than three years, the tribe paid $32 million to two Washington, D.C., insiders who are now being investigated by two Senate committees, the Justice Department, the FBI, the IRS and the Interior Department. The probes involve suspicions of fraud, money laundering and other crimes.
Members of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee and the panel's investigators say lobbyist Jack Abramoff and public relations consultant Michael Scanlon received $82 million from a dozen tribes with gambling interests. Last year, then-chairman Ben Nighthorse Campbell, R-Colo., and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who is now chairman, called Abramoff's and Scanlon's actions a way to exploit Indians' new wealth and the pair's ties to powerful figures such as House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas. Following the pair's instructions, the tribes also gave millions to political figures and groups, according to documents from the Indian Affairs investigation released by the committee.
The tribes were looking for higher visibility in Washington and more money from the federal government. They also wanted permission to run casinos and protection from potential competitors. So they hired Scanlon, a former top aide to DeLay, and Abramoff, a longtime DeLay associate and fundraiser.
Even in Washington, a city steeped in lobbying and debate over how much influence lobbyists do and should have, this case stands out. As the Indian Affairs Committee prepares to resume hearings this spring, unusual aspects of the case so far include: the huge profits Scanlon and Abramoff pocketed ($21 million apiece, according to the committee); the inexperience of the tribal clients; the names Abramoff and Scanlon called their clients in e-mails released by the committee ("monkeys," "morons," "losers" and "troglodytes"); and committee documents that suggest money laundering, fraud and other possible crimes
"Legislation is being marinated in money, and access is being marinated in money," says Marshall Wittmann, a senior fellow at the Democratic Leadership Council and a former aide to McCain. "It's inevitable that the lines were going to be crossed and then blurred and then obliterated."
As casino profits transform Indian economies, "there's been a hovering by enterprising people who would like to represent tribes," says Campbell, a Northern Cheyenne. "Where the hell were you when we were poor?"
A tribe divided
Here in southwestern Louisiana, the results of mixing money, naiveté and greed are on display. Coushatta leaders who raised questions about Abramoff and Scanlon, including successive secretary-treasurers Bertney Langley and Harold John, are arrayed against other leaders who authorized millions for unspecified services, including tribal chairman Lovelin Poncho. The fallout includes disputed recall efforts and resignations, alleged retaliatory firings and a continuing cash drain — this time to lawyers hired by tribe members ensnared in the controversy.
Several miles from the Coushatta casino, past catfish farms and fields of grazing cows and horses, is what amounts to downtown on the reservation. The 10 red-roofed buildings in Elton include a new gym and a medical clinic. The tribe operates a golf resort, a millworks and a horse ranch along with the casino, its cash cow. Four times a year, tribe members get checks, their share of the profits.
The tribe hired Abramoff and Scanlon to negotiate a gambling contract with the state. The two also were assigned to stave off bids by other tribes to get into gaming. Roy Fletcher, a spokesman for Poncho, says they also promised to prevent a new private casino nearby.
Abramoff and Scanlon enlisted prominent Republicans in and out of Congress to help the Coushatta. Two casino bids by competing tribes were thwarted. But the $365 million private casino is opening next month.
The pair held out promises of audiences with President Bush, Interior Secretary Gale Norton and members of Congress in exchange for contributions to groups and individuals, the Senate documents say. At one point, the tribe wrote a $185,000 check designated for an Abramoff "sports suite," or skybox, that some tribe leaders assumed would allow them to meet with influential people at games in and around Washington. But they never hosted anything or met with lawmakers, Langley says.
The millions the tribe paid for "professional services" and contributions offer glimpses of the capital's money culture. The documents show the Coushattas contributed $3.7 million from 2001 to 2003 to the American International Center (AIC), a think tank in Rehoboth Beach, a Delaware resort town. But mainly it was a cash conduit to Abramoff and others.
From May 2000 to May 2001, the Senate documents show, AIC checks for nearly $2 million went to consulting firm Century Strategies, owned by Ralph Reed, a former Christian Coalition leader and Bush campaign official now running for Georgia lieutenant governor.
Documents show direct Coushatta contributions went to, among others, anti-tax activist Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform ($25,000), DeLay's political committees (at least $45,000) and a business-oriented environmental group run by a former aide to Norton ($100,000).
The tribe also paid Scanlon more than a half-million dollars to spy on rivals trying to get into gambling and Coushattas suspected of sharing information. One was former council member Langley.
"I was even further outside the information and decision-making loop than I thought, since I certainly never approved" his own surveillance, Langley told McCain last year. "I would never try to betray my own tribe," he said in an interview.
Before he left in mid-2003, tribal controller Erick LaRocque sounded an alarm. The tribe had paid $32 million from 2001 to 2003 for "lobbying" expenses, he wrote in a memo to Langley; $24 million came from funds designated for health, housing and education. There was no plan to reimburse those funds, nor was there any money to do so.
Rift on the council
Several current and former members of the five-person tribal council say they tried to stop the spending but were thwarted by a three-member majority. "They were doing everything behind our backs," member Harold John says.
David Sickey, a young reformer elected in 2003, says the Washington pair's financial activities and name-calling were "pretty upsetting to me." But he reserves his harshest judgment for the three council members who kept paying and defending them.
"We have to make every attempt to show ... that tribes are capable of governing themselves," Sickey says. "These three individuals are not helping the cause."
The trio — Poncho, William Worfel and Leonard Battise — did not return calls for comment. Their attorney, David Pore, said they "absolutely" were misled by Abramoff and Scanlon. Asked why they didn't demand detailed invoices of what the tribe was getting for its money, Pore replied, "The level of sophistication was not there at that time. They've come a long way."
Poncho and Worfel praised Scanlon and Abramoff for nearly a year after the LaRocque memo. But in November, the tribe sued the Washington pair for the $32 million plus damages. The lawsuit alleges fraud and other wrongdoing.
Abbe Lowell, Abramoff's lawyer, said Abramoff "provided great results for the fees that were paid." Stephen Braga, Scanlon's attorney, calls the allegations "unfounded."
Local tensions continue as the legal battles play out. Poncho and Worfel resigned at a meeting of more than 100 tribe members last year. Then they rescinded their resignations. Then they and Battise fired a tribal elections official who was handling recall petitions.
The fired elections official is council member John's sister. And Battise is married to Langley's sister. "We all get together," Langley says. "But we don't talk politics."
Hmmm...I though the GOP was going to clean up the corruption in Washington. "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss." --The Who (Or even worse.)
"Some heads are gonna' role." --Judas Priest
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