FRESNO, Calif. — Members of the Picayune Rancheria of Chukchansi Indians who were targeted for disenrollment earlier this year were kickedout of the tribe in March — and now a new group of more than 60 members is facing the same fate, according to an attorney representing the majority of the impacted tribal members.
Attorney David Dehnert told The Fresno Bee the disenrollments and the new pending disenrollments are in violation of the tribe’s constitution and several other tribal laws. Dehnert represents about 39 of the 49 who received notices in mid-March saying their names would be removed from the tribe’s membership roll. Dehnert is from Southern California, and he typically represents tribes, but said he believed the tribe’s actions were so egregious that he decided to change spots in this case to litigate the tribe.
The tribe, he said, has now selected another group of around 62 members who will be part of another wave of disenrollments. He represents about 36 of them. According to a copy of one of the notices, the affected members’ disenrollment hearing is April 22.
Dehnert said there’s no “accountability, no judicial review,” and “no checks and balances at all” with the actions of the Chukchansi Tribal Council.
“It’s deplorable what they are doing to their own people. They should be taking care of their people,” he said.
At stake is a piece of the profits from the tribe’s sprawling Chukchansi Gold Resort & Casino on Highway 41 north of Fresno. According to an online estimate, the casino in 2022 had revenue of $43.7 million.
Affected members who spoke with The Bee in January said the disenrollments are being driven by greed and designed to significantly swell the monetary benefits for some tribal families. Another 60 to 70 members were disenrolled last year.
Chukchansi Tribal Council members and chairwoman Janet K. Bill didn’t respond to a request for comment. Diane Vitols, attorney general for the tribe, didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment.
Dehnert said he’s been told by members of the tribe, whom he wouldn’t name in order to not jeopardize their positions, that the National Indian Gaming Commission is auditing Chukchansi.
Calls from The Bee to NIGC’s regional office went unanswered.
“The information that I received was that the audit was directly related to the disenrollments that occurred last month...and then the pending...disenrollments,” he said.
Mary Parker, a spokeswoman with the national NIGC office in Washington, D.C., wouldn’t confirm or deny an audit of Chukchansi and wouldn’t answer specific questions related to an audit.
“As a matter of course, NIGC routinely conducts audits and assistance visits to tribal gaming operations,” she said in an email. “NIGC has nothing specific to provide with respect to the Chukchansi tribe.”
Members of the new group targeted for disenrollment were told the tribe found evidence that their ancestor, Jack Roan, through which they claimed eligibility, was not of Chukchansi Indian blood as required by the tribe’s constitution, according to one of the notices. The tribe, according to the notice, claims Roan was of Pohoneechee Indian blood. Pohoneechee is a Miwok band in California. According to news reports, Roan received one of the original Chukchansi allotments of land from the federal government.
The notice further says the tribe’s enrollment committee’s records show the affected member had been previously disenrolled from Chukchansi on the same basis in 2011.
Dehnert said at one point in the past, the tribe had disenrolled Roan’s lineal descendants, but they were able to prove he was Chukchansi, and the tribe later reenrolled those individuals.
The tribe is now disenrolling some of his descendants again.
Dehnert said some members of the tribe’s enrollment committee and tribal council believe the tribe should consist of only 46 members. Enrollment in the tribe in the fall of 2021 was at around 1,719, and that was prior to last year’s and this year’s disenrollments.
Urging the NIGC to take action
Late last month, Dehnert urged the NIGC to take action and intervene in the tribe’s actions.
In a March 28 letter, addressed to NIGC Chairman E. Sequoyah Simermeyer, he says the disenrollments coincide with the tribe’s violation of NIGC and Bureau of Indian Affairs regulations. In addition, he says, the disenrollments are in violation of the tribe’s per capita ordinance, its gaming ordinance and revenue allocation plan.
Dehnert says his clients also had their per capita payments suspended without due process and in violation of their equal protection rights under the tribe’s constitution. Per capita payments are monthly checks from the tribe’s casino profits.
“Without any checks or balances in place, and with the Tribe’s Enrollment Committee, Per Capita Board and Tribal Council acting in concert as investigator, prosecutor, judge and jury, the Tribe is engaged in systematic illegal per capita terminations and disenrollments that will continue, and is continuing, unabated,” Dehnert wrote in his letter. “This conduct is nothing short of corrupt political favoritism.”
Dehnert has also filed a complaint on behalf of his clients who were disenrolled in March. Since Chuckhansi doesn’t have a court, he filed the complaint at the Intertribal Court of Southern California, and it’s tied to his clients’ suspension and termination of their per capita payments.
He represents the majority of those disenrolled in March.
According to a copy of the complaint, Dehnert argues that the Chukchansi enrollment committee and the tribal council “lack merit” and their actions are in conflict with their own tribe’s constitution.
New wave of disenrollments
Chukchansi has targeted about 62 more members for disenrollment, and Dehnert is representing about 36 of them, though the number could change, he said.
He said he would like to see his disenrolled clients be reenrolled and be recognized as members of the tribe, and the same would go for his clients currently facing disenrollment.
“I don’t necessarily have to consider them as two separate groups because the tribe is doing the same thing to both groups,” he said. “They’re just doing it in a slightly different way, but the goal is to disenroll them, cut them out of the tribe, using a pretext of some type of fabricated violation or lack of eligibility to be a member of the tribe.”
If he can’t get his clients immediately reenrolled, he said, his next best hope is to have a neutral and partial court review his clients’ disenrollment cases, and make a decision.
“Every member has the right to due process of law, and they have the right to equal protection under the law, and what is occurring right now is a clear violation,” he said.
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