State To Investigate Alleged Deals Between Tribes, Vegas Casinos Indian Activist Offers Evidence Of Illegal, Secret Financing

A state panel will look into allegations that Las Vegas casino interests secretly helped finance a $447,000 campaign to get an Indian gambling initiative on the ballot.

Hank Adams, an Olympia-area Indian activist and political consultant, has assembled confidential minutes, tape recordings and other documents that seem to suggest the Puyallup Tribe contributed $200,000 to the I-651 campaign on the promise that it would be reimbursed by a Las Vegas slot-machine manufacturer.

“Whether the claim was true or false, that is in fact what members of the Puyallup Tribe were told. The people of the state of Washington have a right to know if the people behind this initiative are crooks,” said Adams, an Assiniboine-Sioux.

Tribal leaders deny the accusations, and insiders said the documents were actually a ruse by initiative backers to persuade the Puyallups to sink their own money into the campaign.

Adams sent complaints to the state Public Disclosure Commission and the secretary of state, asking for an investigation and nullification of the gambling initiative.

Susan Harris, who heads the PDC’s compliance and enforcement section, said Thursday her staff will investigate.

If approved by voters in November, I-651 would allow unlimited casino gambling, including slot machines, on Washington Indian reservations. Together, the Spokane and Puyallup tribes spent more than $400,000 to get the measure on the ballot.

Among the items submitted to state investigators are tape-recorded minutes of a May 20 Puyallup tribal meeting in which Tribal Chairman Herman Dillon and Councilmember Michael Turnipseed assure angry tribal members that $200,000 contributed to the campaign by the tribe would be reimbursed by “Bally’s Casino of Las Vegas, Nevada.”

Reimbursements of campaign contributions are forbidden by Washington state election laws.

Adams also provided confidential minutes of a June 27 meeting of directors of FTS Enterprises, an intertribal corporation formed to promote tribal gaming. The minutes describe a telephone call in which an FTS director, Buzz Gutierrez of the Spokane Tribe, purportedly arranges a deal whereby Bally Gaming Inc. would contribute $25,000 to the Shoalwater Bay Tribe. In return, the Shoalwaters would order 300 slot machines from Bally.

Three days later, the Puyallup Tribal Council approved a payment of $25,000 to the campaign. Tribal sources say the payment was approved only because council members believed they would be reimbursed by the Shoalwater tribe when the check from Bally arrived.

Herb Whitish, Shoalwater Bay tribal chairman and an FTS officer, said he had no part in any such discussions and knew of no secret deal.

“This tribe has not made a deal with anybody for any type of machinery,” Whitish said. “I wouldn’t be tribal chairman very long if I made those kind of deals.”

Bally representatives also said there was no such deal.

“That is an absolute falsehood,” said Bally’s general counsel, Lou Tavano. “Bally has no agreement to reimburse any party for money expended in the initiative effort.”

John VanHoove, the Bally sales representative allegedly contacted by Gutierrez, said he did remember a telephone call from FTS “begging for money” shortly before the July 7 deadline.

VanHoove said he told FTS he could not tie a contribution to a deal for slot machines. He said he instead offered to purchase up to $20,000 worth of art at an I-651 benefit auction organized by the Shoalwater tribe.

Bally has already made an I-651 contribution of $20,000 by helping to sponsor a Spokane Tribe golf tournament, VanHoove said. Such contributions are legal under Washington state law as long as they are accurately reported on public disclosure forms.

The FTS minutes were “for discussion only,” and no deal with Bally was consummated, said Russell Lafountaine, the I-651 campaign manager who recorded and signed the minutes.

Two sources in the Puyallup Tribe told The News Tribune in Tacoma that the minutes were a ploy by Turnipseed to persuade fellow councilmembers to release another $25,000 payment to the campaign.

Turnipseed denied misleading the tribal council or striking any reimbursement deal.

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