New charges filed against Havre businessman in tribal probe

Staff and wire report

A grand jury has handed down a new criminal indictment against a Havre businessman who already faces bribery, embezzlement and theft charges in a corruption investigation into the Rocky Boy's Indian Reservation, the latest in a string of cases that have led to prosecution of a large group of people both from on and off the reservation.

The new case against Shad Huston was filed in July and unsealed Tuesday. It charges Huston with making false claims in 2011, alleging that he charged $120,000 for services his trucking company had not performed for the Chippewa Cree Tribe.

The tribe had received $10.6 million in federal stimulus aid for road construction and maintenance.

Huston pleaded not guilty Tuesday.

The new indictment is the fifth against Huston dating to 2013. He has pleaded not guilty to charges that he bribed tribal officials in exchange for contracts and overcharged for the work his various companies did on the reservation.

The charges against the former chair of the Havre school board have dragged on. His first scheduled change-of-plea hearing Aug. 14, 2014, in the first set of charges was reset when his attorney, Michael Sherwood of Missoula, said the parties had not been able to reach an agreement and raised questions about what the charges to which Huston would plead actually were.

Aug. 25, 2014, the government presented changes in the charges and Huston entered guilty pleas on some of the charges.

At the sentencing hearing March 12, after Sherwood again raised questions about the charges against his client, Federal District Judge Brian Morris rejected Huston's guilty pleas and scheduled him to go to trial April 4.

Morris rescheduled the trial and held a hearing April 16 on a motion from the government to disqualify Sherwood because he had represented other defendants who would testify in Huston's trial. Sherwood denied the motion, but then on June 6 granted a new motion by the government to disqualify Sherwood's firm.

Morris later granted a motion by Huston's new attorney asking for more time to prepare for the trial.

Some of the charges against Huston involved officials at Rocky Boy who have pleaded guilty to charges including former state legislator, tribal council member and Chippewa Cree Construction Corp. CEO Tony Belcourt, who is serving a seven-and-a-half year sentence; tribal council member and former tribal council chair John "Chance" Houle, who is serving a five year, eight month sentence; and Havre psychologist James Howard Eastlick Jr., who worked at Rocky Boy and had served as CEO of its health care department and now is serving a six year sentence.