Copyright © 1998 NLThomas
All Rights Reserved

TAHLEQUAH – More controversy is brewing in the Cherokee Nation, this time over some $750,000 in bonuses paid to certain high-ranking tribal officials late last year.

Monday night’s tribal council meeting may prove to be contentious, as several councilors say they will demand an explanation from the Byrd administration regarding the bonuses.

According to councilors Barbara Starr-Scott and Troy Poteete, 75 administrative employees received bonuses averaging about $10,000 apiece.

That was odd, Ms. Scott told the AP, since the tribe’s “rank-and-file” employees received no bonuses at all.

"(They) didn’t even get a ham because (tribal leaders) said they couldn’t afford it," according to Scott.

[Photo: Chief Joe Byrd]

The councilors say that although they know the bonuses were paid, they’re having an extremely difficult time figuring out exactly how much tribal money was disbursed, and to whom.

That’s because Byrd administration officials refuse to divulge the information, claiming that such disclosure would violate the privacy of the employees involved. Even Harold DeMoss, the chairman of the tribal council’s executive and finance committee, was denied access to the figures.

Demoss went to the tribe’s highest court, the Judicial Appeals Tribunal, last week and asked that the tribe be ordered to release the information.

The tribunal ruled that information about the bonuses is indeed subject to disclosure, since the money for the bonuses and salaries involved comes from tribal funds – which are budgeted by the tribal council, and subject to its approval.

DeMoss told reporters that his major concern is to find out who determines bonus recipients, and what criteria they had to meet to qualify.

For example, DeMoss wants to scrutinize the case of Jeanne Battles, the tribe’s chief financial officer. Battles is currently under FBI investigation for allegedly embezzling money from the tribe’s housing authority.

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IT’S JUST THE LATEST IN A LONG LINE OF PROBLEMS FOR THE EMBATTLED TRIBE

The controversy over the bonuses is just the latest battle in what has turned into an all-out war over the future of the Cherokee Nation.

Last Friday, an article in the Muskogee Daily Phoenix reported on what appears to many Cherokees to be one more example of an executive branch of government run amok.

According to the Phoenix, Principal Chief Joe Byrd appointed a Cherokee Nation Judge last June, who then promptly dismissed an arrest warrant against the chief which had been issued by Diane Blalock, the former tribal prosecutor.

The sequence of events goes something like this:

In February, Cherokee marshals served a search warrant on the chief’s headquarters in Tahlequah seeking documents pertaining to allegations of financial malfeasance.

The chief fired all of the marshals, and when the Judicial Appeals Tribunal ruled the firings illegal, Tribal Council members loyal to Byrd impeached the justices. The BIA was asked to step in to provide law enforcement on tribal lands, and the political rhetoric continued to rise in pitch.

Arrest warrants were issued for Byrd by Judge Drew Wilcoxen.

In May, Byrd fired Wilcoxen, claiming that his term had expired – despite tribal records, which show that Wilcoxen’s term doesn’t end until February of 1998.

In June, Byrd appointed J. DeWayne Littlejohn to replace him, and the appointment was approved by the council June 16.

On June 20, new marshals hired by Byrd seized the tribal courthouse and ousted the JAT, as well as the fired deputies.

A week later, Littlejohn arraigned Byrd on the charges brought against him, apparently in a courtroom which had been set up in the tribal annex.

The chief pleaded innocent, requested a jury trial, and was released without bail by Littlejohn, who dismissed the arrest warrant.

No trial date was set.


[Photo: The Cherokee Nation courthouse
was finally reopened to the public in
August; it had been boarded up by Byrd
administration officials.]

Byrd’s critics say that the entire “court” proceeding was illegal, that it was moved without any proper authority to the tribal headquarters instead of being properly held in the courthouse, and that Ms. Blalock was not even notified of the proceeding.

Apparently, another woman – Angie Barker – represented the prosecutor, and informed the court that Blalock could not be reached.

But the attorney who represented Byrd also rents space to Blalock, who says she was available at the time.

Six days later, Byrd fired Blalock as tribal prosecutor.

Ms. Barker says she did nothing wrong, and that she works under contract for the tribe.


[Photo: Former tribal
prosecutor Diana Blalock.]

Meanwhile, several tribal officials expressed shock and outrage that such a clandestine court proceeding ever occurred.

It only surfaced when a member of the council went to the courthouse to request a copy of the arrest warrant for the chief, and the court clerk couldn’t find it.

Blalock told the Phoenix that “I don’t think (Littlejohn’s order) is worth the paper it’s written on....I think (he) was made a judge because he was favorable to the chief, and he had represented the deputy chief in an assault case.”

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EVEN THE U.S. SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR COULDN’T END THE CRISIS

Since June, the Cherokee Nation has remained troubled, with a near-riot breaking out when several fired deputies and a number of citizens attempted to reclaim the courthouse from Byrd’s security force.

Even U.S. Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt got involved, appointing an independent commission to probe the matter.

The Massad Commission found that the impeachment of the justices had been illegal, and that firing the deputies – while not illegal – was definitely a questionable move.

The deputies, on the commission’s advice, were rehired, although several had to struggle for months to get their original jobs back.

The former head of the Cherokee Marshal Service, Pat Ragsdale, remains on administrative leave.

Blalock and several other tribal and court employees never got their jobs back at all.


[Photo: The political controversy
has left a lot of tribal members
angry and confused.]

And the political ferment that has threatened to blow the tribe apart for nearly a year now continues to bubble just below the surface.

For his part, Byrd was unavailable for comment on the story Friday, as he was attending a meeting for members of the Five Civilized Tribes.