Former BIA officer gets 4 years for corruption

GREAT FALLS, Mont. (AP) – A former Bureau of Indian Affairs officer on the Fort Peck Reservation who was convicted of stealing from the tribe's loan program has been sentenced to four years and three months in prison.

U.S. District Judge Sam E. Haddon sentenced 63-year-old Florence White Eagle of Poplar on Monday and ordered her to pay $3,810 in restitution.

Prosecutors say the former BIA superintendent took a $15,000 loan from the Fort Peck credit program while helping co-conspirator and former supervisory credit manager Toni Greybull suppress a complaint by Greybull's mother that fraudulent loans had been taken out in her name. Greybull died in 2008.

White Eagle also was found guilty of facilitating the repayment of other fraudulent loans so earlier fraudulent loans would not be discovered. She is among several convicted in the scheme that ran from August 1999 through May 2009.