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Mashpee tribe leader’s financial powers reinstated
By Tanner SteningPosted Feb 7, 2019
MASHPEE — The Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Council has moved to restore Chairman Cedric Cromwell’s financial powers, three weeks after it decided unanimously to remove them and took a vote of no-confidence in him.
On Wednesday, council members voted 7-0 to rescind the no-confidence vote and reinstate Cromwell’s fiduciary responsibilities as chairman of the tribal council and president of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Gaming Authority, according to a statement issued by the tribe. The gaming authority is a five-member board overseeing the tribe’s long-stalled gaming operation.
The reversal comes four days before the tribe’s annual election. Cromwell is not up for re-election.
“Now that we’ve had time to look at this more carefully, based on evidence and documents, the Tribal Council made a conscious, collective decision to reinstate the Chairman’s power back,” Tribal Council Secretary Ann Marie Askew wrote in the statement.
It’s unclear what evidence the council reviewed before making the decision and a spokesman for the tribe said specifics about the evidence were not available.
The initial vote on Jan. 23 came after revelations that Cromwell and his wife, tribal council member Cheryl Frye-Cromwell, owe the IRS $37,000 in back taxes. The pair are going through a divorce proceeding in Taunton.
In addition, an unrelated financial audit of the tribe’s government services department for 2016 that was completed last year and posted to a publicly available federal website found numerous record-keeping flaws, including “material weaknesses and significant deficiencies” in the tribe’s internal control over its financial reporting and over major programs paid for by federal grants.
The audit also pointed out that the gaming authority had accumulated $375 million in debt as of January 2017. It described the gaming authority as a “discretely presented component of the tribe.” Tribal debt has since risen to more than $440 million as a result of loans provided by its casino backer, Genting Malaysia. That debt does not have to be paid back if the tribe’s $1 billion casino project in Taunton does not move forward, according to tribal officials.
The tribal council did not reinstate Cromwell’s financial authority because he asked them to, according to Askew.
“We did this on our own. We worked it out and we are tired of beating a dead horse. There is no evidence of any financial impropriety on the part of any tribal officer,” Askew wrote. “Our ancestors are twisting in their graves over people running to the news media to try and divide us.”
The tribe has been fighting a multiyear legal battle to secure its reservation. Neighbors of its planned resort casino sued the U.S. Department of the Interior after the federal agency took 321 acres of land into trust on the tribe’s behalf in 2015 under the Obama administration, effectively creating the reservation and seemingly paving the way for the gaming facility. A federal judge sided with the neighbors and sent that decision back to the Interior Department, which declined to take additional action, putting the future of the casino project at risk.
U.S. Rep. William Keating, D-Mass., has reintroduced a bill in Congress that would secure the land and bar future legal challenges to its status but it faces stiff opposition from a variety of interests.
In a statement, Cromwell wrote that it is difficult to see his credibility questioned, but that he remains committed to moving forward in an effort to secure the tribe’s reservation by pushing for the legislation.
“Of course it’s painful for personal attacks and innuendo to be flung in my direction, but this struggle is bigger than me or any one person,” he wrote. “So I will continue to fight for my people as best as I know how.”
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