The United States Attorney’s Office announced that during
a federal court session in Billings, on May 1, 2013, before Chief U.S.
District Judge Richard F. Cebull, Frederick Pauk Deputee, Jr., a
25-year-old resident of Hardin and an enrolled member of the Crow Tribe,
appeared for sentencing. Deputee was sentenced to a term of:
- Probation: five years
- Special assessment: $100
- Restitution: $6,130
Deputee was sentenced in connection with his guilty plea to theft from an Indian organization.
In an offer of proof filed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Carl E. Rostad,
the government stated it would have proved at trial the following:
The Crow Tribal Historic Preservation Office (CTHPO) on the Crow
Indian Reservation was created in 2005. The CTHPO is a designated office
of the Crow Indian Tribe that provides for direct tribal involvement
and leadership in the protection and enhancement of Crow lands and
cultural resources. It serves to identify, inventory, and protect
culturally, archeologically, and historically important resources both
on and off the reservation.
Each year, the CTHPO receives grant funds from the National Park
Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. A requirement for any
enterprise seeking to do work on the reservation that may disturb tribal
lands—utilities, construction, energy exploration, development—is that
the business employ the services of a CTHPO employee (archeological
technician) to monitor the project to insure that lands of cultural or
historic importance are not destroyed. The company is then charged for
this monitoring service and payments are made to the Crow Tribe.
The director of the CTHPO from approximately 2005 until November 15,
2011, is identified here as X.X. During the time X.X. was director, most
of the monitors were his family members. Two other monitors, one of
which was Deputee, were not hired as Crow Tribe employees but were
assigned as project monitors and received payment directly from the
companies.
Sometime in the summer of 2009, X.X. approached the vice chairman of
the tribe and tried to get the process changed so that the companies
could make direct payments to the monitors. When he was told he could
not do that, he indicated he would take the matter up with the chairman.
The chairman was never approached and did not provide any approval for
X.X.’s request.
Even though his request was denied, X.X. began advising companies
that payments would now be made directly to the tribal monitors assigned
to the project. At first, in the summer of 2009, few direct payments
were arranged. However, in the summer of 2010, the CTHPO staff person
who insured that companies were properly billed and that CTHPO payments
went to the tribe left the office, and direct billing—having companies
pay monitors personally instead of remitting the fee to the Crow
Tribe—became much more prevalent.
From July 2009 to November 2011, a total of over $500,000 in
monitoring service payments from the companies doing business on the
Crow Reservation were diverted to the personal use and benefit of the
employees of the CTHPO and the two non-employees—one of which was
Deputee—assigned to projects as a monitor.
In the summer of 2011—from June to August—Deputee was assigned as a
monitor to the Sarpy Creek project, which was the Westmoreland Resources
expansion of the Absaloka Coal Mine in the Powder River Basin.
Deputee’s assignment was to monitor the progress of the project to
insure that no culturally, archeologically, or historically important
sites were disturbed.
A Westmoreland sub-contractor, GCM Services, went forward with an
extensive excavation of the site with the approval of X.X., who, as
director of the CTHPO, had assigned Deputee and others as project
monitors. As a result of the approved site plan, a 2,000-year-old bison
kill site was unearthed in 2011 with heavy equipment, causing
significant, irreparable damage to the site. The largest bison bone bed
was estimated to cover almost 3,000 square meters and contained the
remains of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of butchered bison remains and
prehistoric spear points dating back to the Late Archaic period.
When interviewed, Deputee maintained that he was authorized by his
aunt to work as a monitor on the site and denied knowing that the money
paid by the companies were tribal fees which should have been deposited
with the tribal government. His aunt had no supervisory role at the
CTHPO. Deputee was convinced—based on the assurances given to him by his
aunt—that he could act, and was participating in the CTHPO activities,
as an independent contractor role and also received payment directly
from GCM. He admitted, however, that he did not work the hours for which
he billed the company and acknowledged the wrongfulness of billing for
hours not worked. According to a GCM Services company representative,
“the monitors often did not show up, and, if they did, they often only
worked one to three hours.”
Because there is no parole in the federal system, the “truth in
sentencing” guidelines mandate that Deputee will likely serve all of the
time imposed by the court. In the federal system, Deputee does have the
opportunity to earn a sentence reduction for “good behavior.” However,
this reduction will not exceed 15 percent of the overall sentence.
The investigation was conducted by a team of agents and auditors
working with the U.S. Attorney’s Guardians Project, including the Office
of Inspector General for the Department of Interior, the Federal Bureau
of Investigation, and the Criminal Investigation Division of the
Internal Revenue Service.
