Tadios, St. Marks battling in state court on harassment charges

Ken Blatt St. Marks, the former chair of the Chippewa Cree Tribe’s Business Committee, has been been barred from having contact with Fawn Tadios, the head of the health clinic at Rocky Boy’s Indian Reservation.

The one-year restraining order was issued by Hill County Justice of the Peace Audrey Barger, who took over the case because of potential conflicts of interest in tribal courts. She set strict limits on the contact St. Marks could have with Tadios if he is reinstated as tribal chair.

St. Marks immediately appealed to state court, and state District Court Judge Dan Boucher set a hearing for July 8. St. Marks said Tadios was part of an effort to discredit him because of his efforts to work with federal officials to root out corruption at the reservation.

Barger said at the start of the hearing that the issue is whether Tadios is justified in requesting a restraining order, and that she did not want the hearing to focus on political issues at the reservation.

St. Marks immediately appealed Barger’s ruling.

Tadios’ status at the health clinic was not clear.

An employee at the clinic Thursday said Tadios was not available, and the employee could not say whether she still was CEO.

Tribal officials contacted by the Havre Daily News starting Thursday afternoon had not confirmed her status by Friday’s printing deadline.

Delays in tribal court, questions of motive

Tadios filed the request for a protection order in Justice Court after a tribal court administrator informed her the tribal courts would not be able to deal in a timely manner with the request she had filed in that court.

The first tribal judge assigned to the case, Chief Judge Duane Gopher, recused himself at the request of one of the parties. The next judge assigned, Tim Koop, recused himself because he is related to St. Marks.

The next judge brought in to preside over the case, Dawn Running Wolf-Bitz of Browning — whom the Business Committee announced Wednesday it had appointed as the new chief judge for the Chippewa Cree Tribal Court — was unable to preside over the hearing on the matter due to a family emergency.

Tadios testified in Justice Court that St. Marks has been abusive to her, yelling at her, making inappropriate comments and touching her inappropriately.

Tapes of the hearing are public information, and reporters listened to them.

St. Marks — whom the tribal Business Committee removed from office March 25 citing reasons including employee harassment — has said from the start of his being suspended and then removed, and during the Justice Court hearing, that the action is an attempt to discredit him and is being done in retaliation for his efforts to uncover misuse of money, including the Health Board being $5 million in the hole.

“I found some illegal activity going on at the Health Board and I turned it over to (a federal) inspector general’s office … ,” he testified during the hearing “They are investigating a bunch of corruption that is going on at the Rocky Boy reservation right now.”

After the board removed St. Marks from office, the federal government filed charges against six individuals, including one of the board members who removed St. Marks and the chair of the tribal construction company, alleging the individuals had embezzled federal stimulus money allocated for the regional water project the construction company is building.

St. Marks testified during the Justice Court hearing that he was removed from office illegally, and still is recognized as the tribal council chair by the federal government.

Questions of jurisdiction

St. Marks’ lawyer, East Glacier attorney David Gordon, said during the hearing that Barger’s court does not have jurisdiction on the issue.

“I don’t know how a state court can dictate to a federal Indian tribe on federal lands the manner in which he needs to carry out his duties … ,” Gordon said. “I think there becomes a challenge, there, of how can a state court dictate to a federal Indian tribe how their leader should conduct himself?”

Barger said as a county justice of the peace, she has jurisdiction over civil matters throughout the county.

“I am dictated to by the law I have to follow, and I understand all of the jurisdictional issues … ,” she said. “What I was trying to do was put something in place to allow protection for the victim for a period of time and for (the government) to still operate and still work.”

Allegations of abuse

Tadios testified in the hearing that St. Marks was aggressive and abusive to her from the beginning of his taking office in November. She said she has never experienced such treatment in her eight years as head of the tribal Health Council or in her 30 years in the health care field.

She said he also made sexually suggestive comments to her, including talking about spanking and inviting her to go to a strip club with him when they were in the nation’s capital, and put his hands on her shoulders at one point while meeting with her in her office and tried to put his hands down her blouse.

St. Marks denied during his testimony that he touched Tadios inappropriately. He said he did make a joke, referring to a song he often cites, about spanking her if she did not do her job properly, and that while in Washington he told her he was going to a strip club, when she asked him what he was doing that night. He said another comment, about sharing a hotel room, was a pointed joke about the Health Board and the tribal government being in debt and needing to save money.

He admitted to yelling at Tadios.

“You know, when you are $5 million in the hole, and you want to go to Las Vegas and go party, or you promote people and you give people promotions and you don’t have the money to pay them extra money and that goes on … ,” St. Marks testified, “and doing crazy things with that money, and health care is being threatened by it, you know, I have a problem with that and I’ll holler at anybody when that happens, especially when my people’s health care depends on it.”

Judge issues restraining order

When Barger made her ruling — noting that in a civil case, the burden is to prove by a preponderance of the evidence, rather than beyond reasonable doubt — she said she found that, under several Montana statutes, the restraining order was justified.

Even if St. Marks did not intend to insult, harass or sexually assault Tadios, that is the effect his actions had on her, Barger said.

“I do find, based on (Mr. St. Marks’) own admissions, that he did yell,” Barger said. “I do find, as well, that there was some intimidation and language that, once said, may be to him, may be joking, but to her obviously was not joking.”

She said, regardless of what comes out of the investigations of alleged misdeeds at Rocky Boy, and if he is reinstated or re-elected as chair, she hopes that he will modify his leadership.

“I wish you luck, because I am the first person who, if something is not going right, I want to know and I want to get to the bottom of it, but when you lead, and if you are reinstated as tribal chairman which you … might be, you need to lead your people differently … ,” Barger said. “Your people need a leader, and they need somebody who can do it in a manner that is professional, courteous. There is no reason you can’t tell somebody that they are doing a bad job and you do it in a manner that’s not aggressive and assaultive.”