Ousted tribal chief takes dispute to court

By Becky Shay
Billings Gazette

BILLINGS, Mont. – Eugene Little Coyote has filed a complaint in federal court seeking to be reinstated as president of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe.

A hearing is set for today to consider motions on Little Coyote’s request to have U.S. District Court Judge Richard Cebull override a Bureau of Indian Affairs decision that supported his ouster as president of the tribe.

The Department of Interior and the BIA are named as defendants; both have recognized as interim president Rick Wolfname, who was elected vice president of the tribe when Little Coyote was elected in 2004.

The complaint and supporting documents were filed Wednesday. Also named as defendants are Ed Parisian, BIA Rocky Mountain regional director, and tribal BIA Superintendent Marjorie Eagleman.

Today’s hearing is on Little Coyote’s request for a temporary restraining order against Parisian’s decision, which supported an Eagleman decision to recognize Wolfname. Little Coyote wants to have Parisian’s decision stayed until a hearing on a permanent injunction can be held.

Little Coyote’s filing describes the decision against him as “an unlawful interference with the normal operation of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe ... against all stated policies of the United States of America that grants sovereign authority to Indian peoples on all tribal reservations.”

“I have followed tribal law and unfortunately the council and the BIA have not, so that’s why I must turn to the federal court,” Little Coyote told The Billings Gazette.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Mark Smith and Leif Johnson will represent the BIA in the hearing. They were still reviewing the complaint Thursday and could not comment, according to Jessica Fehr, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s office.

Wolfname did not return a telephone call Thursday.

Little Coyote has been arrested twice since refusing to leave the president’s office. The first time was Dec. 28 on a criminal-trespass charge when he tried to retain the office and refused to leave the Little Wolf Capitol Building in Lame Deer. That day, the national head of the BIA, Jerry Gidner, wrote Little Coyote, asking him to vacate the office. Little Coyote asked for a court order to vacate; he said Thursday that he refused to leave office without such a document.

“I would have vacated if there was a court order,” he said.

Little Coyote was arrested Jan. 8 at his house and charged with criminal mischief for staying in the building for more than five hours between the time Gidner asked him to leave and BIA law enforcement removed him from the building.
The complaint claims that the BIA directed that locks be changed at the Little Wolf building.

“Someone, undoubtedly under the Defendant’s direction, ordered all locks changed on the capitol building and on the president’s office, and he has been denied access ever since,” the complaint states. “He understands, upon an eyewitness account, that his own papers, personal effects, wall hangings, other matters belonging to him and to the Tribe have been trashed, and sent to the dump.”

Little Coyote’s appeal to override Parisian’s decision has gone to the upper echelon of the BIA. Initially he requested an injunction and appealed to the Interior Board of Indian Appeals. That panel on Jan. 3 ruled that Parisian’s decision was automatically stayed until the appeal was heard.

However, the Board of Indian Appeals decision was overruled by Carl Artman, who as Interior assistant secretary of Indian affairs is director of the BIA. Artman said Tuesday he will review and decide the appeal.

Little Coyote’s complaint also says Little Coyote supporters were fired from tribal jobs since Wolfname was put in office. The decisions have “caused enormous chaos and turmoil,” the complaint states.

“Many people do not know whose authority to follow since the Constitutional Court has said Eugene Little Coyote is the President, and the Defendants have said Rick Wolfname is the President,” it states.

The complaint states that because BIA agents and police officers enforced Parisian’s decision, “the administrative personnel and officers of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe are placed in an untenable position.”

“If they disobey the laws and ordinances of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe, they will be in violation of their own laws and guilty of misconduct,” according to the complaint. “On the other hand, if they don’t comply with the Decision of the Regional Director, they may be subject to loss of their jobs and maybe even to imprisonment.”