Rocky Boy shutting down some services due to lawsuit

The Chippewa Cree Tribe announced Tuesday it will be holding back assistance payments and scaling back the tribe's workforce on Rocky Boy's Indian Reservation after a judge ordered the tribe to pay between $25 million and $30 million to a loan company.

A letter signed by Chippewa Cree Tribal Chair Harlan Baker, addressed to tribal members, posted on the tribe's Facebook page and sent by Baker to the Havre Daily News, says the cutbacks and a freeze in general assistance and child support payments comes after a Hill County judge ordered the tribe and its online lending company, Plain Green, to pay more than $25 million to BEH Gaming Ltd. of Florida, a guarantor of a $12.6 million loan the tribe took out in 2006 to build the tribe's Northern Winz Casino.  

Baker's letter said that despite the cutbacks, jobs of essential staff and law enforcement would be retained, and the tribe will continue to fight for the tribe on the case.

"We have fought and we are going to continue to fight this on behalf of the tribe in this case," Baker said this morning. "We are working diligently to protect all of our financial resources from BEH."

He said all other questions should be directed to his spokesperson, Shelby DeMars.

A judgment issued by state District Judge Dan Boucher Feb. 14 ordered the tribe and Chippewa Cree Development Corp. to pay more than $20.62 million in principal and interest on loan and settlement agreements, the tribe to pay more than $4.56 million on a promissory note to BEH tribal officials signed in 2011, and the tribe and Plain Green to pay more than $4.56 million from Plain Green distribution agreements.

Whether the two $4.56 million payments are separate or joint, with a total of more than $25 million or $30 million, was unclear, and Judge Boucher was not available for comment by print deadline this morning.

Baker in the letter said loan documents specified that BEH could only collect funds from the casino, but BEH "grossly overstepped its bounds and has improperly taken funds from a number of tribal accounts - many of which they completely zeroed out."

In 2014, then-Chippewa Cree Business Committee Chair Ken Blatt St. Marks, who has since lost his bid for re-election, said he was aware of the issue.

He received a letter from BEH stating the tribe owed the company $16 million for loans including to expand Northern Winz Casino, including that the tribe was supposed to build a hotel and truck stop with the casino. The tribe added one gas pump and built 10 rooms in the upstairs of the casino, he said, but did not build the truck stop or hotel.

BEH this year filed a civil complaint against members of the Chippewa Cree Tribal Gaming Commission asking a federal judge to rule that an investigation conducted under the authority of the gaming commission has no jurisdiction over the dispute.

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Havre Daily News Editor Tim Leeds contributed to this report.