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New charges against Sunchild unsealed

Bruce Harold Sunchild has scheduled a change-of-plea hearing for Nov. 10 in the United States District Court in Great Falls after new theft and tax evasion charges against him were unsealed.

The latest charges are part of a massive federal investigation into corruption at Rocky Boy's Indian Reservation.

Sunchild was chair of the Chippewa Cree Tribe's Business Committee in 2011, when he allegedly accepted bribes and embezzled from the tribe's funds.

He was indicted in June on a charge of taking a $25,000 vehicle as a bribe in 2011 after he authorized $300,000 in payments from the tribe to Shad Huston's consulting company in Havre. Huston is a former president of the Havre school board.

The new indictments charge Sunchild with three counts of theft and alleges he told the Rocky Boy's Health Clinic director in 2012 to cut his son and another person checks of $12,500 each from the clinic board's funds, according The Associated Press.

The unsealed indictment from the U.S. District Court have four counts of tax evasion against Sunchild.

The first count alleges that Sunchild attempted to evade and defeat a large part of the income tax he owed in 2009 by filling out a false tax return. He allegedly short-changed the amount of tax he owed by $8,705.

The second count is that he allegedly did the same thing in 2010, short-changing his due tax by $6,300.

The third count is for doing the same thing in 2011, this time keeping $17,309 of what should have been part of his total tax due.

In 2012, he kept $18,721 from his taxes by claiming he was making less that year than he actually was.

 
 

Reader Comments(1)

rbcitizen writes:

Good job Guardian Project, And Havre daily is right... THIS IS MASSIVE!. Millions upon millions are missing, the thieving and bribery from our Tribal working/poor People go way deep. They didn't think of anyone else but themselves when they were committing this awful crime to our Tribal Members. Guardians Project, we need to get to the very bottom of THIS!! Com'on... that much money in one year.

 
 
 
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