The Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe inwards MA wants to recoup alleged financial losses and sound costs from its former leader after he was found shamefaced cobbler's last twelvemonth of accepting bribes and extortion.
The tribe has been trying to establish a cassino holiday resort inward Taunton since gaining federal credit in 2007. After the Mashpees successfully placed 321 acres of set down into the federal trust in Sept 2015, the Mashpees partnered with Genting, a world-wide gaming operator, to develop a $1 one thousand million structured holiday resort called First Light Resort and Casino.
Federal prosecutors inward 2020 brought charges against Cedric Cromwell, who at the time was the chairman of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe. Oliver Cromwell was found shamed inwards May 2022 on 2 counts of accepting bribes as an federal agent of an Red Indian tribal government, ternary counts of extortion below colourise of official right, and a bingle reckoning of conspiring to practice extortion.
Cromwell inwards Nov 2022 was sentenced to 3 years inward prison house and nearly $240,000 inwards fines and restitution. He remains a liberal man as his charm is ongoing.
The folk latterly filed a polite suit against Oliver Cromwell inwards Massachusetts’ Barnstable County Superior Margaret Court on septenary charges. They include breach of fiducial duty, fair services fraud, fraudulent concealment, and civic conspiracy.
The tribe is seeking financial damages as determined by the courtroom or through and through a settlement, plus interestingness and effectual costs.
Bribery Scandal
Cromwell was elected tribal chairman of the Mashpee Wampanoags in 2009 and was reelected inward 2013 and 2017. As chair, the tribe says Ironsides had the say-so to “preside o'er all meetings of the Tribal Council” and “perform the usual duties of a chairperson, including playing as the functionary spokesperson for the Tribe, engaging inwards public relations, serving as coordinator over all Tribal government activity activities, and exercising any authorization delegated to him past the Tribal Council.”
Federal prosecutors successfully argued that Cromwell used the First Light gambling casino project to his advantage. Oliver Cromwell was convicted of accepting a $10,000 cash buy from an designer inwards change for a $5 zillion plan contract.
That architect, Saint David DeQuattro of Rhode Island, was found guilty of bribery and ordered to pay a $50,000 mulct and undergo place confinement for a year with electronic monitoring. Along with the $10,000 bribe, DeQuattro also gave Oliver Cromwell a Bowflex Revolution home gym and provided the tribal chair with a “weekend stick at an upscale capital of Massachusetts hotel in May 2017.”
Federal investigators uncovered a 2017 email from Cromwell, who was married at the time, to DeQuattro that read:
Hello, Dave. I trust all is well. My Birthday is coming upward this Fri May 19th and i wanted to spend Fri through Mon at a rattling skillful hotel in capital of Massachusetts for my Birthday weekend. Is it possible that you can catch me a nice hotel elbow room at the Four Seasons or a rooms at the Seaport Hotel? i am sledding to feature a special invitee with me. Please let me know, and Thank You.”
The Mashpees contends inwards its civil complaint against Oliver Cromwell that his wrongdoings caused them business organization interruptions and difficulted their ability to untroubled ongoing financing because of the reputational harm he caused to the tribe.
Legal Backstory
The Mashpees and Genting inwards 2015 proposed First Light, but the propose was apace pushed rearward on by members of the Taunton community of interests inwards a public opposite safari bankrolled past gambling casino magnate Neil Bluhm.
Bluhm’s Rush Street Gaming remains the lone bidder for the remaining commercial-grade casino license the Old Colony Gaming Commission (MGC) can come forth for Region C, which encompasses the state’s southeastern counties of Bristol, Plymouth, Nantucket, Dukes, and Barnstable. The MGC has held turned on issuing the permission because of the Mashpee’s ongoing efforts to establish a tribal casino inwards Taunton, which is in Bristol County.
The federal government is responsible for(p) for complicating the Mashpee’s sound flop to a casino in Taunton.
The Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Amerindic Affairs below the Obama governing body agreed to submit the 321 acres of set ashore into the federal trust. Part of that soil — well-nigh 151 acres — was to live used by the tribe to assure its economic sovereignty through and through First Light, a contrive financed past Genting.
However, the BIA below the Trump administration said the agency erred inwards designating the bring down as tribal land. Then, inwards belatedly 2021 during the Biden administration, the office affirmed the tribe’s historical ties to Taunton and redesignated the tracts as supreme property.
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