by Robert Gehrke
Associated Press Writer
The Associated Press
The government won't appeal a ruling ordering it to reform a mismanaged
multibillion-dollar trust fund for Indians, but what changes the government
makes and how much money may be paid to Indians still must be determined.
More than 300,000 Indians are included in a class-action suit filed in 1996
over a century's worth of problems with the system that handles about $500
million a year in proceeds from oil wells and other uses of Indian land. The
Indians say they are owed at least $10 billion due to mismanagement.
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth sided with the Indians in late 1999 and
ordered the Interior and Justice departments to reform the fund. The ruling
was upheld in February by the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington.
A deadline for government attorneys to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review
the case passed on Friday.
"Every time they've fought, they've lost. Every loss has made their position
worse. Maybe the message is getting through," Elouise Cobell, the lead
plaintiff, said in a statement issued Wednesday.
Lamberth has appointed two people to monitor the reform efforts on the
court's behalf and file regular progress reports with the judge.
"We're comfortable with the arrangement that we have," Interior spokeswoman
Stephanie Hanna said. "We intend to move forward (with trust fund reform) in
a serious manner."
A separate trial to determine how much the Indians lost because of the
mismanagement is expected later this year.
The trust accounts came from an 1887 federal law that divided some
reservation land into smaller plots for individual Indians. The federal
government holds that land in trust for the Indians, meaning it cannot be
taxed or sold.
Many of the tracts are leased for grazing, logging, mining or oil drilling.
Proceeds are supposed to be deposited in government accounts and then paid
to Indian landholders.
Since the beginning, however, those accounts have been mismanaged, the
government acknowledges. Records for many were never kept, and documentation
for others was lost or destroyed.
Some of the money was stolen or used for other federal programs. Some lease
proceeds were never collected. Thousands of the accounts have money but no
names attached.
Earlier this month, lawyers for the Indians asked Lamberth to hold Interior
Secretary Gale Norton in contempt of court for failing to stop the
destruction of documents related to the case. The Indians hope to use
documents in the case to reconstruct how much money is missing from the
trust fund accounts.
"They are breaching the trust, they have committed malfeasance and they are
continuing to commit malfeasance," said Dennis Gingold, attorney for the
plaintiffs.
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