Tribal council asserts claims against St. Marks

In an open letter to the citizens of the Chippewa Cree Tribe, the current members of the Chippewa Cree Business Committee give them an explanation of why they removed Ken Blatt St. Marks from office for the third time.

In it, they write that the elected officials are “embarrassed, shocked and outraged by the convictions that have come down on this Reservation in the last few years.”

The many indictments in the Guardians Project investigations into corruption on the reservation has cause some tumult on the reservation an,d in their letter, the council writes that they are doing everything they can to keep it from happening again by working directly with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, federal agencies and state departments.

“At the same time we have been somewhat shell-shocked and, given the circumstances, did not want to air our dirty laundry in the public any more than the headlines in the Havre Daily News have already done,” the letter reads. “For these reasons, we have been extremely hesitant to publicly address the charges against Mr. Blatt and the reasons for our unseating him.”

The board members write that their actions have nothing to do with St. Marks working with the U.S. Attorney’s office in the federal investigations, as he has alleged often. Their troubles with him begin before he started collaborating with the federal government.

Due to their belief that St. Marks has committed crimes against the people, they write that they feel they “would be abrogating our duties if we did not remove Mr. Blatt from office.”

The informal charges the council have against St. Marks were included with the letter and include the loss of hundreds of thousands of tribal dollars due to his doings, sexually harassing female employees and harassing others, unilaterally firing tribal judges, using tribal funds to buy a vehicle for himself, intimidating tribal employees into writing him a payment of $199,446 and other charges.

“They keep accusing me of stuff and I keep saying, ‘get me indicted,’” St. Marks said this morning. “They’re playing their little dumb games with the judges at Rocky Boy.”

He said that the committee members are claiming that the judges at Rocky Boy have found him guilty on charges, but he has never gone to court for any of them. He added that those who were on the committee and accused of embezzlement did not leave the committee until they were formally indicted. He is not being given the same chance as those who have actually been found guilty of corruption.

“They’re doing this stuff because I turned them in on all the other stuff,” St. Marks said, alluding toward his cooperation with the Guardians Project.

The list of 15 charges St. Marks is being accused of has grown over time.

“Every time I run for council and win, they just add five more charges,” he said.

He said that he has been found clean by the U.S. Attorney’s office and the government has no reason to kick him out of his position.

“Mr. Blatt is a predatory opportunist and his constitutional removal will serve to stop his unlawful conduct which harms the Tribe and its reputation,” the letter reads.

The committee gave St. Marks multiple chances to speak on the record about the charges before they made the decisions to remove him, which he refused.

The letter is signed by the six current committee members: Harlan Gopher Baker, Ted Demontiney, interim chair Rick Morsette, Gerald Small, Dustin Whitford and Ted Whitford.

St. Marks has repeatedly said there is no basis for these allegations and has urged the committee to get him formally indicted if they are true. The committee need not take that step to remove him from office.