WCCO-TV investigates casino money

(Editor’s Note: This story appeared on WCCO-TV on Nov 13, 2003)

      (WCCO-TV) In the gambling business, the house always wins. And in Minnesota the house belongs to the multi-billion dollar Indian Casino Industry. Mystic Lake, outside the Twin Cities, is one of the most profitable in the nation.

      The WCCO-TV I-TEAM wanted to know where Mystic Lake's profits are going. The answer may surprise you.

      It's estimated that each full member of the tribe at Mystic Lake receives an annual payment of more than a million dollars. But a six-month investigation by the I-TEAM has uncovered questions about who's getting those payments and who's not.

      Minnesota's Mdewakanton Indians call it "The Center of the Earth." 5-million acres cradled between the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers.

      The land once belonged to the Mdewakanton's, but the government forced them to give it up in exchange for financial promises...many of them broken promises.

      Now, reservations and casino gambling are two ways the Federal Government has tried to help Indians provide for themselves. At the Mdewakanton's reservation in Prior Lake, most members receive a valuable piece of land set aside for the tribe by Congress.

      The Mdewakanton's casino is Mystic Lake. Today, members of the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community live in luxury. From the money players leave behind, each member gets well over a million dollars a year.

      The tribe's constitution says, to be considered for membership and the money, you have to be found qualified. On the surface, the requirements are simple: First, you can't be a member in any other tribe. And second, a quarter of your ancestry has to trace back to the 1886 Census of Minnesota Mdewakantons.

      Ernie Peters says he meets both of those requirements. But he doesn't have any land, and he's never seen one penny.

      "Is this about money?" asked David Schechter of the I-TEAM.

      "Yes, I can't lie to nobody," said Ernie. "I am living on $729 a month."

      Like many Native Americans, Ernie has ties to several tribes, but says he's currenty not a member of any of them. He considers himself Mdewakanton.

      An expert genealogist hired by the I-TEAM researched Ernie's family tree and found that he is more than 1/4 Mdewakanton.

      Though Ernie has applied for membership, he remains tribeless. So are dozens of other Mdewakanton Indians who claim similar qualifications.

      "What the cavalry and them couldn't do in the old days, money is going to do to our people," said Ernie. "I know it."

      Dr. Barbara Buttes is an anthropologist and a Mdewakanton. She is also one of the tribe's biggest critics.

      "There's quite a bit of smoke and shadows," says Buttes. "Everybody knows that something isn't quite right."

      Buttes and others say that out of about 200 members at Mystic Lake roughly three-out-of-four do not meet the tribe's constitutional qualifications for membership. Their take, each year, is a combined $150 million.

      Buttes asserts that some people in the tribe aren't supposed to be, and people who are supposed to be in the tribe aren't allowed. She blames Stanley Crooks. He's been the tribe's chairman for ten years. Buttes says Crooks picks and chooses who's in and who's out in order to consolidate his grip on power in the tribe and one of the most successful Indian casino's in the country.

      The tribe's lawyer, Kurt BlueDog rejects that accusation. He says the entire tribe votes together on issues of membership. He says some Indians, like Ernie, are simply after the money.

      Schechter, "How many people who are in the tribe right now, are quarter blood?"

      BlueDog, "Boy, I don't have any idea but I don't think it really matters. That's not really the point."

      The tribe's lawyer says the point is another provision in the constitution that he says gives the tribe the power to decide who's in and who's out, regardless of blood qualifications.

      It says, "the governing body shall have the power to pass resolutions or ordinances..." regarding membership.

      BlueDog says that allows them to enroll children of members who are less than a quarter-blood.

      BlueDog, "It's not my decision, and not your decision. It's the members of the tribe who make that decision. And they're the only ones in a position to make that decision."

      Schechter, "Are they the right decisions?"

      BlueDog, "I'm not going to presume to be able to read people's minds as to whether they're the right decisions. Certainly they're fully legal."

      Ernie Peters doesn't buy that.

      He says he's still here, tribeless and fighting, because he's on the wrong side of tribal politics. Peters says it's time for the tribe to live up to the sacred Mdewakanton tradition of meeting the needs of the people first and the individuals last.

      That needs to happen soon, he says, because the people are in need.

      "Our people are literally vanishing. They're dying. We're homeless. Let us come home, and give us our share."

      Critics say the government has known about this situation for years...and looked the other way. That's now the subject of a lawsuit, and Friday night's I-TEAM.

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