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The Bureau of Indian Affairs must begin notifying Indian landowners of their rights as trust beneficiaries before their land is sold, a federal judge ordered last week.

U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth ordered the Interior Department to submit language for the detailed notices within 10 days. This will be the first time BIA has been required to let landowners know about possible sales.

The order marks the latest chapter in Cobell v. Norton, the mammoth class action suit filed in 1996 by Eloise Cobell, who alleged that the Interior Department has bungled the management of Indian lands since the late 19th century. Interior is supposed to collect and disburse revenues generated by the lands to the Indians.

The lawsuit now involves about 500,000 Indian beneficiaries. Cobell, a member of the Blackfeet tribe and executive director of the Native American Community Development Corp., is trying to force the government to account for the money held in the trust and reform the system for managing the money. She claims that more than 50 million acres of land once were held in the trust. Now, less than 11 million are.

Cobell praised Lamberth's decision. "For more than a century, the U.S. government has sold our land out from under us - without consent, without appraisal and without informing us of our rights as trust beneficiaries. That ends today," she said in a press release.

Indian land often is sold before appraisals are completed and landowners are sometimes "fully unaware that their land is up for sale in the first place," the court ruled. In order to have an accurate accounting of the trust, beneficiaries must be notified of sales and exchanges, the judge ordered.

"We now have, in specific detail, rules for the transfer of individual Indian land that will ensure that the seller understands his or her rights as class members and trust beneficiaries," said Keith Harper, an attorney for the plaintiffs.

Elouise Pepion Cobell v. Gale Norton, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (96-1285), Sept. 29, 2004.

Gambling and Losing

The Merit Systems Protection Board reversed a decision that a National Park Service worker could not be fired from his maintenance job because of a felony conviction for on-duty gambling on federal property and a charge that he intimidated a fellow employee.

Christopher J. Jones, a painter at the Boston National Historical Park, pleaded guilty to a felony charge of gambling on federal property in November 2002, admitting that he received football betting cards from a "canteen truck operator" and distributed them to fellow workers three times in September and October 2002.

Jones also was charged with conduct unbecoming a federal employee for allegedly leaving a threatening voicemail message for William Robinette, a custodian who provided information to the Park Service and police about Jones' gambling activities.

Four supervisors at the park heard the Dec. 6, 2002, voicemail, including Gene Gabriel, chief of maintenance at the park, who charged Jones with intimidating Robinette. The call was traced to a Dorchester, Mass., home of the wife of a co-worker of Jones. Jones was fired April 19, 2003.

Jones denied the intimidation charge, claiming he was babysitting at the home of his sister, Lynn Powers, in Revere, Mass., at the time of the call. The four supervisors only worked with him on a handful of occasions and could not have recognized his voice, he said. Powers backed up Jones' story in a statement, but failed to sign it under oath or have it notarized.

Jones, a 13-year employee with the agency, appealed his removal. The MSPB initially reduced his punishment to a 90-day suspension, saying there was not enough evidence that he was the person who left the voicemail.

But on Sept. 28, the board reversed the decision, saying that the written statements from Jones and his sister did not count as sworn evidence. The agency, on the other hand, submitted sworn affidavits from Jones' supervisors identifying the voicemail as belonging to Jones. That, the board ruled, proves the second charge by a "preponderance of the evidence."

Nevertheless, the board concluded that even without the second charge of intimidation, firing Jones for gambling on federal property would be a reasonable penalty.

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