Pembina tribe member refuses to plea

By Alison Beshur
The Daily Times

Vincent Dale Ross said it doesn’t matter how many times he is found in contempt of court and ordered to serve jail time, he will not plea on charges against him in Kerr County Court-at-Law.

On Tuesday, Ross again will face misdemeanor charges that he displayed fictitious license plates and was driving without a valid license. The 52-year-old man says he is a member of The Little Shell Pembina Band of North America, a sovereign foreign nation indigenous to the United States and Canada.

“If necessary I’ll die in jail,” Ross said after his release last week from Kerr County jail. “These local people have no authority.”

In September, Ross said he was pulled over around noon on Junction Highway in Kerrville by an officer with the Texas Department of Public Safety. His silver 1989 Buick Century displayed license plates issued by the Little Shell Pembina Band, he said.

After Ross showed the officer his tribal identification card, he was arrested and taken to jail, he said. He was released later the same day, but arrested again on Nov. 1, when he appeared for a hearing in the cases.

On Dec. 19, Ross again was arrested during a hearing. This time, it was for contempt of court.

“[S]aid Defendant refused and failed entirely to acknowledge his identity, to enter a plea, or to otherwise comply with the Order of the Court to identify himself and enter a plea to the charge,” according to the order of contempt.

Ross was released Wednesday.

He has filed several documents with the court, including a 41-page motion for dismissal for lack of jurisdiction.

Ilse Bailey, assistant county attorney, filed a response to Ross’ motions, which she called “lengthy, convoluted, verbose, long-winded, rambling and incoherent.”

“They purport to quote authority that is either inapposite, inarticulate, archaic or simply wrong,” the response reads. “Texas law requires pleadings by a defendant in a criminal case to fall within parameters described in Chapter 27 of Code of Criminal Procedures. As his pleadings do not purport to or appear to fall within these parameters neither the state nor the Court are bound to consider them at all.”

Neither Bailey nor Judge Spencer Brown would comment about the open case.

 

Little Shell

The history of the Little Shell Pembina Band of North America seems marred in controversy.

At one time, there was a Little Shell Band, a branch of the Chippewa on the northern Great Plains, according to the Anti-Defamation League, an organization that monitors extremism.

Their leader, Chief Little Shell, died in 1901.

About five years ago, North Dakota resident Ronald Delorme claimed hereditary rights and filed a federal lawsuit for financial compensation for land he said was once owned by the Little Shell Band of Indians.

The case, which was filed in 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, was dismissed because Delorme failed to prove direct lineage, injury or constitutional standing.

Delorme no longer heads the Little Shell Band. Instead, he is serving a sentence for fraud, said Ross and Gary Garrison, a public affairs specialist for the U.S. Department of Interior Bureau of Indian Affairs.

The ADL calls the Little Shell Pembina Band of North America an “active anti-government extremist group.”

The new leader of the Little Shell Pembina Band is Lawrence Henry or Sitting Eagle. Other tribal leaders include members of Delorme’s family, according to the group’s Web site, www.official pnlsbna.org.

Web site postings show five members have been suspended for trying to take over and misuse Pembina Nation trust funds, panhandling members’ funds, giving out false information or soliciting foreigners to become registered members.

Garrison said some tribal nations have negotiated with state governments where they are headquartered to issue tribal license plates.

The Little Shell Pembina Band, which is not a federally recognized Native American Indian tribe, does not have an established territory. As a result, Garrison doubted the tribe had negotiated that right.

Ross said those rules only apply to tribes that are federally-recognized and have relinquished their sovereignty to the United States. Little Shell Pembina Band is a “Congressional treaty tribe” with sovereignty on U.S. land pre-dating those requirements, Ross said.

 

Indigenous white man

Ross stands about five-feet, seven-inches tall and weighs about 150 pounds. His light brown hair is streaked with gray and forms a wave shape from one side of his head to the other.

He has light skin and eyes as blue as a clear Texas sky.

Ross said he grew up on the Delmarva — Delaware, Maryland, Virginia — peninsula and earned an undergraduate degree from Drexel University in Pennsylvania.

He said he did some graduate work at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and received a doctorate degree in business and ethics from the American College of Metaphysical Theology, a Minnesota-based non-accredited, religious nonprofit organization.

Ross said he retired in 1996 from the U.S. Department of Commerce, where he worked with a specialized non-combatant engineering core.

Ross has retraced his ancestry for several years. His father’s side of the family has Spanish and Italian roots, he said.

It’s his mother’s side of the family that includes lineage to the Pembina, he said. That side of the family also descends from the Celtic, Scotch-Irish, English, German and Lenape — a tribe indigenous to Delaware.

“Even my white ancestors are aboriginals,” Ross said. “They fought and died in the Continental Army.”

A photocopy of Ross’ identification certificate from the Little Shell Pembina Band of North America shows he became a member on July 3, 2003. The document was authorized by Delorme and lists an expiration date of 2009.

Ross said he’s aware of Delorme’s fraud charges and that scam artists have claimed to be Pembina.

“It makes me angry,” Ross said.

Ross won’t say whether he has or previously had a state-issued driver’s license. He said he once displayed license plates for states where he lived.

A Texas driver’s license was renewed in May 2000 for a Vincent Dale Ross of Fredericksburg, according to PublicData.com.

Ross still acknowledges the rest of his ancestry, despite choosing membership in the Little Shell Pembina Band of North America.

“I identify with all of it,” Ross said. “Basically, it (Pembina) is a sovereign nation indigenous to this nation. The Celts aren’t and neither are any of the others.”