3 sentenced in Crow reservation corruption case

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) – Three defendants in a corruption case on Montana’s Crow Indian Reservation were sentenced to probation Wednesday for their role in a crime ring that prosecutors said took money meant to pay for monitoring historic and cultural sites, including a bison kill site that was later severely damaged.

Larkin Troy Chandler, Mark James Denny and Frederick Deputee, Jr. were each sentenced to five years’ probation by U.S. District Judge Richard Cebull. They also were ordered to pay restitution – $73,045 for Denny, $44,546 for Chandler and $6,130 for Deputee.

Deputee was sentenced on a charge of theft from an Indian organization, and Chandler and Denny for theft from an organization receiving federal funding

The men had faced potentially lengthy prison sentences after being initially charged in December with additional counts of conspiracy and mail fraud but pleaded guilty to reduced charges in January under a plea deal with the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

The men did work for the Crow Tribal Historic Preservation Office, which monitors companies, including a coal mine, on the reservation along the Wyoming border.

Under former preservation office director Dale Old Horn, authorities said companies were told to pay monitors directly instead of paying the Crow Tribe as should have been required. Some of the monitors were paid a second time as tribal employees.

From July 2009 to November 2011, companies paid more than $500,000 for monitoring services by the defendants, authorities said. Among the sites monitored by Denny and Deputee was a 2,000-year-old bison kill site that the U.S. Attorney’s Office said was irreparably damaged when excavation work was approved in 2011 by Old Horn.

Chandler and Denny were tribal employees. The Historic Preservation Office receives money from the National Park Service to ensure that lands of cultural or historic importance are not destroyed.

Deputee, Old Horn’s grandson, pleaded guilty to theft from an Indian organization. He was not an employee of the preservation office but was assigned to monitor a planned expansion of Westmoreland Resource’s Absaloka coal mine near the location where the bison kill site was excavated.

Old Horn and the other remaining defendants – Martin Lloyd Old Horn, Allan Joseph Old Horn and Shawn Talking Eagle Danforth – face a June 10 trial on charges including fraud, conspiracy and extortion. Old Horn’s attorney, Matthew Wald, last week asked the court to continue the case for three months to give the defense more time to prepare.

Cebull already canceled their trial once for the same reason. The judge is set to retire this week, and on Tuesday, the case was transferred to U.S. District Judge Sam Haddon in Great Falls.

Attorneys for the other defendants have joined in Wald’s motion, according to court filings. All four remaining defendants have been released pending trial.