St. Marks won't respond to attorneys

Dozens of people filed through the metal detector Monday at the tribal offices, past police officers anticipating the crowd and into the tribal chamber to watch the Rocky Boy's Indian Reservation chairman address numerous allegations made against him.

Ken Blatt St. Marks, the elected chair of the Chippewa Cree Business Committee, refused to ask people to leave the meeting, which was supposed to be a closed-door session in which he would be defending himself against nine charges he is facing.

The crowd, mostly comprised of St. Marks' supporters, showed up for the hearing and was vocal in support of St. Marks, who has twice been removed as tribal chair. Many topics other than the reason for the meeting were discussed publicly.

As St. Marks took the chairman's seat, he picked up a flyswatter left on the long council table and joked about it being there to keep the flies off him, swatting at the empty spaces at the table designated for council members.

The other committee members gradually took their seats, with interim chairman Richard "Ricky" Morsette sitting to his left. Morsette attempted to call a closed meeting so they could discuss the charges with St. Marks and the attorneys, but St. Marks refused, saying that Morsette could not open the meeting because he was not the chairman.

Derek Hines, the attorney from Pepper Hamilton LLP who was to read the charges, told St. Marks that the allegations were personal, to which St. Marks replied, "I have nothing to hide."

The attorney began reading the charges despite the meeting not being moved to closed session as it normally would be. But he was forced to quit after reading through a couple of the charges because the crowd was yelling at him, and St. Marks wasn't answering his questions.

"This isn't a community meeting," Hines said. "This is a proceeding initiated by the business committee against you - "

"Who called the meeting?" St. Marks interrupted.

Hines tried to continue, but St. Marks interrupted with the same question several times. As Hines tried to continue, the crowd showed more agitation.

"You read the constitution, there's only one person can call a meeting and that's the chairman of the tribe," St. Marks said. "You're not going to jump around here and not obey that constitution."

Hines continued on with reading the opening rules to the meeting, but was repeatedly interrupted by people in the crowd and St. Marks himself.

"Mr. St. Marks, there is a certain amount of time allotted to this hearing and it's designed so you can respond to these very serious allegations against you," Hines said. "The more time that is spent allowing community members and members of the tribe to speak on your behalf, you can decide to do that."

Hines kept speaking, but community members spoke over him. He urged St. Marks to close the meeting so they could conduct it properly.

"I have nothing to hide, and, in fact, I think that right now, you're trespassing on Rocky Boy," St. Marks said, and received applause.

St. Marks told the attorney to go get him indicted. Otherwise, he was not going to move from his position.

"When I'm indicted legally, I will walk out of here, but you're not going to come in here and just lay out all kinds of false charges on me and think that it's going to work," St. Marks said. "It worked the first time, but it's not going to work this time."

Eventually, the allotted time for the meeting expired, and the attorneys and a couple of the committee members, including Morsette, left the room.

Some time after they left, St. Marks read the charges out loud to the crowded room and responded to them, calling them "bogus accusations." There were nine charges in total, but more allegedly are going to be attached to them.

The charges include misappropriation of tribal funds, sexual harassment and failure to follow proper tribal governmental procedure.

Much of the time afterward was used to try and get three of the four recently elected members, Calvin Jilot, Jody Lamere and the re-elected Harlan Gopher Baker of the Business Committee sworn in, but the chair of the election committee was not found. Beau Mitchell was in Washington, D.C., at the time.

There were also concerns about the swearing-in ceremony taking place while not in an actual Business Committee meeting. That prompted St. Marks to say he and his supporters would try to do it Thursday at 9 a.m.,when the monthly Business Committee meeting is held.

Committee member Ted Demontiney confirmed concerns in the crowd about a secret meeting between the attorneys and the other council people in Box Elder.

Though the crowd became more sparse with time, the conversations lasted over six hours.