Western Sky Financial, a prominent online lender that offers short-term loans at triple-digit interest rates, said it will stop funding loans on Sept. 3 amid mounting legal battles with authorities in several states, including Maryland.
The decision arrives as state and federal regulators are clamping down on payday lending, a burgeoning industry that operates under a patchwork of laws. These loans carry high interest rates and balloon payments that can trap Americans in a cycle of debt, critics say. Industry groups say payday lenders are being persecuted and argue that they serve a need that is not being met by traditional banks.
Officials at Western Sky did not respond to requests for comment, but the firm explicitly said on its Web site that it will no longer provide loans as of September.
Western Sky has been the subject of several lawsuits challenging its lending in states with strict usury laws that cap interest rates on loans. The company is owned by a Cheyenne River Sioux tribal member and operates on the tribe’s South Dakota reservation. It claims that the tribe’s sovereign immunity makes the company exempt from following state law.
This month, New York state’s attorney general, Eric Schneiderman, sued the company, alleging that it violated state licensing and usury laws that cap interest rates on loans at 25 percent.
Schneiderman accused the company of charging New Yorkers annual interest rates upward of 355 percent. The lawsuit aims to stop Western Sky from engaging in lending in the state and to void the loans it has already made. The attorney general’s office said the case will go forward despite the company’s decision to stop lending.
Similar actions have been taken against the firm in Oregon, Colorado, Minnesota and Maryland. In 2011, the Maryland Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation issued a cease-and-desist order against Western Sky after receiving a barrage of consumer complaints.
“There has been significant expansion of online lenders, and the driver is technology,” said Mark Kaufman, Maryland’s commissioner of financial regulation. “There is no doubt that the economics of the business change when you can sit behind a computer and make thousands of loans, versus sitting behind a desk and make a few in a day.”
Advocacy groups have long been concerned about the ability of payday lenders to circumvent state laws. Once states began introducing interest rate caps, some lenders migrated online or moved their operations offshore to sidestep laws. Other lenders began forging relationships with Native American groups to take advantage of their sovereign-nation status.
State authorities have stepped up efforts to go after the lenders, especially those operating under Native American sovereignty, with more enforcement actions and lawsuits.
Benjamin M. Lawsky, head of the agency that regulates banks in New York state, this month ordered 35 online and Native American lenders to stop providing online payday loans in the state. In response, two Native American groups filed lawsuits against the state last week, saying its actions violated their federal status.
As states redouble their efforts to police payday lenders, consumer and industry groups are waiting to see what steps the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will take to enhance federal oversight.
The bureau has supervisory and enforcement authority over storefront, online and bank payday lenders. In April, it took a step closer to imposing rules to govern the industry with aresearch report on the payday-lending landscape. In one key finding, the report said the average borrower took out 10 payday loans in a year and paid $458 in fees.
Peter Barden, a spokesman for the Online Lenders Alliance trade group, said the backlash against payday lenders could deprive millions of Americans of access to small-dollar loans.
“If regulators pressure banks to stop processing these legal payments, it would cut off an important credit choice for millions of underserved consumers,” he said. “It could also send a chilling message to banks who are legally processing these and other transactions.”
Uriah King, vice president of state policy at the Center for Responsible Lending, contends that community banks and credit unions offer small-dollar loans at better rates than payday lenders. Payday loans, he added, are often used to cover recurring expenses, which can trap consumers in unsustainable loans.
“A two-week balloon loan priced at 400 percent is just inherently unsuitable for people who are in the red every month with their basic expenses,” King said.
Fifty years ago this week, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous “I have a dream” speech during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, a dream that many American Indians, along with other ethnic groups, continue to hope for.
It would be interesting to track American Indian unemployment since the March on Washington August 28, 1963, and compare it to the rates for African Americans and the country as a whole (national unemployment for 1963 was 5.7 percent). Unfortunately, it is not possible, as the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics seems not to have reported this stat on Native populations until 2003.
As King said in 1963, “It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned,” still holds true today.
Since 2003 (also the first year that Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders weren’t lumped into the “Asian” category) American Indians have consistently tracked slightly behind African Americans for the dubious honor of the racial group with the most unemployment. (A BLS study reports white and African American unemployment back to 1972, Hispanics back to 1973, and Asians to 2000.)
For 2011, the latest year in the BLS study “Labor Force Characteristics by Race and Ethnicity,” one in seven American Indians (14.6 percent) were unemployed, according to BLS. African Americans showed 15.8 percent unemployment, while Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders (who include native populations on Guam and American Samoa) came in at 10.4 percent, higher than the national average of 8.9 percent.
The BLS measures national rates. Unemployment rates on individual Indian reservations can be much higher. In 2010, 47 percent of people on the Navajo reservation were unemployed, according to the tribe. At the Pine Ridge reservation of the Oglala Lakota Nation in South Dakota, 80 percent are unemployed, according to the tribe.
The Indian employment situation since the recession ended in 2009 has been mixed. Indian unemployment for 2011 was down from 15.1 percent in 2010 but actually up from 2009, which was at 13.3 percent.
The BLS said American Indians and Alaska Natives made up about one percent of the labor force in 2011, and Native Hawaiians/Pacific Islanders less than one percent. In terms of participation in the labor force, an interesting mix was recorded. Indians had the lowest participation in the work force in 2011, 59.2 percent, while Native Hawaiians had the highest, 69.4 percent—higher even than the white population, which registered 64.5 percent.
Indian participation in the workforce has decreased from 64.4 percent in 2003, while it has increased for Native Hawaiians during that same time period. It was 68.9 percent in 2003.
Indians also brought up the rear in the category of the percentage of the population employed, at 50.5 percent. Native Hawaiians were first in this category as well, at 62.2 percent (that’s also higher than the one for whites, which is 59.9 percent).
Breaking out unemployment by numbers, 1.2 million of a 2 million “civilian noninstitutional population” of Indians were in the labor force in 2011. Of that number, one million were employed (564,000 men and 464,000 women) and 172,000 were unemployed. BLS found 816,000 Indians were not in the labor force. Unemployment for Indian men in 2011 was 15.4 percent and 13.7 percent for Indian women.
For Native Hawaiians, 393,000 of a labor force of 439,000 (total population was 633,000) were employed in 2011, according to BLS. Men had a higher unemployment rate, at 11.4 percent. Native Hawaiian women had an unemployment rate of 9.3 percent.
The BLS report includes many other categories of analysis, but in many categories, Indians and Native Hawaiians are just skipped. These include earnings, education, occupation and industry, and families and mothers. One analysis which ignores Natives starts by saying “Among the major race and ethnicity groups,” indicating they are considered not a major group. Sometimes Natives get lumped into “other groups.”
Like Census Bureau counts of Indian populations, some dispute the accuracy of the BLS unemployment figures. According to the National Congress of American Indians, “The BIA [Bureau of Indian Affairs] concept of unemployment is different than that used by BLS and Census. Persons are considered “unemployed” by BIA if they are available for work, but not employed. This approach is a more realistic one in view of the economic circumstances in reservation areas than is the definition of unemployment in the BLS and Census Bureau data which requires that a person be “actively seeking work” to be designated unemployed.”
NCAI says unemployment in Indian areas “often stands at above 50 percent.” The advocacy group says “tribal nations continue to experience unemployment rates well above the national average, and rates of unemployment are exacerbated by economic conditions, endemic poverty, inadequate infrastructure, and marginal education opportunities.”
NCAI points to two particular pieces of pending legislation—the American Jobs Act and the reauthorization of the Workforce Investment Act—as potentially being helpful to combat Indian unemployment if they are signed into law. And both could be a decent honor to the 50th anniversary of the job march on Washington D.C.
The Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs voted during a recent Tribal Council meeting to officially end its pursuit of the Bridge of the Gods Resort and Casino in Cascade Locks. For all intents and purposes, the casino was a dead deal in 2010, when Gov. John Kitzhaber took office for a third term.
The proposed 600,000-square-foot facility on 60 acres of Port of Cascade Locks land was a lightning rod of controversy during its decade of life — which never matured from its planning stage to its implementation stage. The casino would have been located on a subtly beautiful tract of land between Interstate 84 and the Columbia River, near the Forest Lane exit.
A couple of years ago the casino’s environmental impact assessment was approved by the federal government and sent to the Department of the Interior for review. That’s where it sat for a year. Then, in January 2012, the Cascade Locks Port Commission allowed the deadline to expire for an option agreement on port land the tribes had wanted to purchase for the casino and resort. In the meantime, the tribal council built Indian Head Casino on Highway 26 in Warm Springs.
Christina Harper / Special to The Herald Gwyn Porras (left) and Roderick Brogan stock shelves at the new Walmart store on Highway 9 at Highway 528 in Marysville.
Christina Harper, Herald Business Journal
MARYSVILLE — Walmart staff members insist that there is no fixed date for the grand opening of the new 147,000-square-foot Marysville store. Judging by the huge Halloween section overflowing with scary monsters and black-and-orange garb, shoppers can safely bet that the one-stop shopping experience on the corner of Highways 9 and 528 will be ready to roll back prices in the next few weeks.
“Early fall,” said Sonia Smith, manager at the new store.
With 270 full- and part-time workers on board, the store now is being set up. Staff are stocking baby formula is on the shelves, setting up electronics and emptying dozens of cardboard boxes.
Kayla Corley of Marysville will switch to part-time work from full-time once the store opens.
“This is my second day,” Corley said.
Corley previously worked at the Tulalip Quil Ceda Village Walmart then took time off to have her children. After an eight-year break, she is back and happy to be employed in sporting goods.
“It’s a good company to work for,” Corley said. “Good benefits.”
Rumors abound that the Tulalip Quil Ceda Village Walmart will close once the Marysville store is up and running. The Quil Ceda store is not closing, Smith said.
The Marysville store took eight months to build and includes a garden center, food, pharmacy and firearms. The store also has a sewing and craft section with bolts of fabric that can be measured and cut.
“Customers are asking for it,” Smith said.
Freezers light up as shoppers approach pizza and other frozen food displays adding to Walmart’s commitment to energy saving and sustainability, Smith said.
There is no tire and lube section, but inside the store, shoppers can stop for a sandwich at Subway or a trim at the Smart Style hair salon.
Walmart has long been criticized for stocking shelves with goods from China. This long-term relationship could mean that company’s recent commitment to “Made In America” goods, which Walmart hopes will bring more manufacturing jobs to the United States, might be met with skepticism.
But Smith is one of many Walmart employees involved with a local vendor program where people who have ideas for locally made goods they want to see on shelves can contact her at the Marysville store. Local goods including “Big Foot” mugs and caps are likely to prove popular with shoppers, Smith said.
For Roderick Brogan, of Everett, and Gwyn Porras, of Marysville, Walmart is a new venture. The two will be working in the store on Walmart.com, checking for website orders and getting them ready for customer pick-up.
As the men sorted socks from boxes and hung them on wire hangers, they each said they were excited about opening day. Whenever that is.
“It might be crazy,” Porras said. “But I am looking forward to it.”
Pietro Gorlier, CEO and President Mopar, delivered hundreds of baby supplies and a cash donation to Sue Franklin of Southeastern Michigan Indians Inc. that were collected and then unloaded by employees from Chrysler’s Mopar.
Source: Native News Network
CENTERLINE, MICHIGAN – It was like Christmas in the summer as hundreds of baby supplies were delivered to Southeastern Michigan Indians Inc. (SEMII).
The items, donated by Chrysler Group LLC employees, were collected and delivered by employees from Mopar, Chrysler Group’s service parts and customer care brand. Donated supplies included baby clothes, books, toys, strollers, diapers, and bottles. The Chrysler Foundation, the charitable arm of Chrysler Group, also provided a $7,500 grant to assist SEMII with the purchase of additional items for infants.
“All of these items will be put to good use by families in our community,”
said Sue Franklin, Executive Director of SEMII.
“We are grateful to all of the people at Chrysler and Mopar for their time, effort and donations.”
As part of a company wide effort with United Way, Mopar continues its work with SEMII, which is located two blocks from Mopar’s main parts distribution facility in Center Line, Michigan. The organization provides social services to Native Americans and Macomb County, Michigan residents.
Last year, Mopar volunteers repainted the organization’s cultural center and sponsored a “Dress for Success” clothing drive to provide professional attire to those in need.
“At Mopar, our mission is to fully support our customers and our brands,”
said Pietro Gorlier, President and CEO, Mopar.
“With that same passion, we want to support people in our community and make a difference.”
“It’s always very heartwarming to lend a hand to our neighbors, especially when they’re young children with a world of possibilities ahead of them,”
said Jody Trapasso, President, The Chrysler Foundation.
A federal grand jury has indicted two former top staffers at the Alaska Inter-Tribal Council on charges they stole nearly $236,000 from the nonprofit that advocates for tribal governments across the state.
Former executive director Steven D. Osborne is accused of taking the lion’s share of that sum — $213,380 between January 2008 and February 2009 when he resigned, according to the indictment, filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Anchorage. It says Osborne spent some of the money on a motorcycle, three boats and other personal items.
Thomas R. Purcell, the council’s former finance director, is accused of taking about $22,720, according to the indictment. He’s also accused of funneling nearly $70,000 to Osborne to pay off a council-issued credit card without ensuring the director spent the money in accordance with council policy and procedures.
Purcell served as acting executive director after Osborne resigned but was terminated only a month later, in March 2009, by the group’s Executive Council.
Given the amount of money involved, a federal prosecutor on Monday called the case “certainly significant” and in line with several other federal cases filed against top officials of groups working on behalf of Alaska Native people. In the most recent, two former officials of the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission stand accused of stealing more than $575,000 from the organization.
Osborne and Purcell could not be reached for comment Monday. Prosecutors say Osborne lives in Fairbanks and Purcell lives in Anchorage. As of Monday afternoon, an arraignment had yet to be scheduled.
Founded in 1992, the council has weighed in on behalf of Alaska’s tribes on high-profile issues ranging from salmon bycatch and climate change to affordable energy and land rights. During the time the alleged theft took place, the group’s annual budget swelled as it distributed fuel vouchers from the Venezuelan government’s CITGO Petroleum Corp. to heat thousands of rural homes around Alaska.
Then the council’s work stumbled, a staffer said.
The stolen money and resulting investigation “really hurt us,” said Delice Calcote, the council’s current executive director. Calcote, originally hired as an office manager in 2007, has worked without pay for the last two years, she said. The office is largely run by volunteers these days.
She said she couldn’t comment on the indictment until it plays out in court.
“It’s been a long road, nerve-wracking,” Calcote said. “Now the path begins.”
Getting to an indictment took years. Suspected problems with the council’s books first came to light internally in 2009 when a federal grant administrator raised red flags, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Bottini. Once the suspicion of wrongdoing got the attention of law enforcement, investigators began the painstaking process of forensic accounting.
“It literally involved gathering a large volume of material in the form of bank accounts and information from AITC itself and crunching the numbers,” Bottini said. “It was a long, drawn-out process to get all that done. We had to recreate thousands of documents.”
The indictment specifically references two pools of council funding. An EPA grant paid for the executive director position. Between January 2008 and December 2010, the council got nearly $1.1 million from the agency. The council also received more than $8 million from the Venezuelan government for the home heating program, according to previous reports.
Osborne started work with the council in December 2007. According to the indictment, he stole money five different ways: by issuing himself $99,221 in checks without approval; by double-billing the council for Web and database development for $5,843; by making cash withdrawals totalling $31,500 for personal use; by issuing and cashing checks to himself in the amount of $24,595; and by misusing AITC credit and debit cards to buy personal items worth $52,703.
Purcell started as the council’s finance director in January 2008. According to the indictment, he made 16 separate payment transactions for about $69,475 from AITC accounts to pay off the balance of Osborne’s AITC credit card. He also submitted false time sheets for $19,200 charged to the CITGO account and upped his bi-weekly compensation by $3,520 without Executive Council permission, the indictment states.
Iditarod musher Mike Williams served as AITC chairman until the end of 2008 when he lost a re-election bid. Williams, an Akiak tribal council member, said he had no idea that much money was being stolen during the time he served as chair. He called the whole situation unfortunate.
“What needs to happen is to move forward from here,” Williams said. “Really the tribal leadership in Alaska must move forward and get this behind us.”
Reach Zaz Hollander at zhollander@adn.com or 257-4317.
In a historic move, the U.S. Department of Justice has agreed to notify Yakama tribal police before executing search and arrest warrants against tribal members on tribal land.
The move could help widen the path for the Yakama Nation, a sovereign nation, to have its full civil and criminal authority over its people returned.
“It’s historical from the standpoint that there is not another agreement like this with any other tribe and the U.S. Department of Justice,” Tribal Council Chairman Harry Smiskin said Monday during a telephone interview.
For decades, the lack of procedures involving search and arrest warrants between tribal and nontribal authorities on the 1.2-million-acre reservation have sparked disputes, including the Feb. 16, 2011, federal raid on King Mountain Tobacco, which is owned and operated by Yakama tribal member Delbert Wheeler in White Swan.
Federal authorities took computers, records and other documents from Wheeler’s business without informing tribal leaders and even blocked tribal police from entering the property during the raid.
In response, the tribe sued the U.S. Department of Justice in March 2011 for allowing the FBI to execute the raid without notifying tribal authorities. Also named in the lawsuit were Yakima and Benton county sheriff’s offices and government agencies in Virginia and Mississippi for their involvement in the raid. Wheeler is accused of avoiding state cigarette taxes in those states.
Similar agreements have been reached with Yakima and Benton counties and Virginia and Mississippi authorities, and the case subsequently has been dismissed.
Smiskin said the agreements reaffirm the tribe’s ability to govern itself and clearly establish procedures for outside agencies seeking to arrest tribal members on tribal land.
Benton and Yakima counties have agreed to not only allow a tribal police officer to be present when executing such warrants, but also to book tribal suspects into the tribe’s jail and go through an extradition process.
However, those arresting procedures may not apply to federal authorities who often have jurisdiction over serious cases on the reservation, Smiskin said.
Those cases usually are forwarded to the FBI from tribal police.
Smiskin said he’s seen improved communication between federal and tribal authorities since discussions about the agreement began not long after the lawsuit was filed.
“They have been very cooperative in that regard, in alerting us before coming on to the reservation to issue any warrants,” he said.
FBI spokeswoman Ayn Sandalo in Seattle said she couldn’t comment on the agreement because it was part of litigation, but said the FBI has always worked well with tribes.
“The FBI has always valued its partnerships with tribal authorities,” she said. “So for decades now, we’re continuing to build on that foundation and looking for ways to improve our working relations.”
For more than half a century, civil and criminal authority over tribal members on tribal lands has been confusing at best.
In 1855, the Yakamas signed a treaty with the federal government that allowed the now-10,000-member tribe to govern itself. It has its own police department and jail.
But in 1953, Congress enacted Public Law 280, which allowed several states to take over criminal and much civil authority over tribal members on their own reservations.
Yakama tribal authorities have retained much criminal authority over its members, but are now petitioning the state in a process called “retrocession” to have the rest, including civil authority, over its people returned.
Smiskin said the agreement could strengthen the tribe’s petition.
“I assume it would add to the petition for retrocession,” he said.
With yet another heat wave set to descend before summer releases its grip, the last things we may want to think about are puffy coats and long johns.
But that is what’s in store for winter 2013–14, according to predictions from the Farmers’ Almanac released officially on Monday August 26.
“The ‘Days of Shivery’ are back!” proclaimed a statement from the Farmers’ Almanac (not to be confused with The Old Farmer’s Almanac). “For 2013–2014, we are forecasting a winter that will experience below average temperatures for about two-thirds of the nation. A large area of below-normal temperatures will predominate from roughly east of the Continental Divide to the Appalachians, north and east through New England. Coldest temperatures will be over the Northern Plains on east into the Great Lakes. Only for the Far West and the Southeast will there be a semblance of winter temperatures averaging close to normal, but only a few areas will enjoy many days where temperatures will average above normal.”
Further, the Southern Plains, Midwest and Southeast will have more precipitation than normal, the Almanac’s prognosticators said. This means a plethora of snow for the Midwest, Great Lakes and parts of New England. There will be mixes of rain and/or snow just south of that, in southern New England, southeastern New York, New Jersey and the Mid-Atlantic region, the statement said. Uncharacteristically, the Pacific Northwest may be drier than usual.
“Significant snowfalls are forecast for parts of every zone,” the Almanac said, predicting especially heavy winter weather during the first 10 days of February 2014—meaning that the Superbowl, scheduled to be played outdoors at the MetLife Stadium in the Meadowlands in New Jersey, may be more of a “Storm Bowl,” as Almanac managing editor Sandi Duncan told the Associated Press.
“This particular part of the winter season will be particularly volatile and especially turbulent,” the statement said.
As it has since 1818, the Almanac makes predictions by triangulating the positions of the planets, sunspot activity and cycles of the moon.
Jeremy Simmons was heartbroken, baffled and confused. He had been living with his girlfriend, Crystal Tarbox, in Mannford, Oklahoma, when she became pregnant in August, 2012. But in March of this year, he says she moved out when she was seven months pregnant. Without a trace, she was gone.
For the next two months, Simmons, 27, searched for Tarbox, who was 23 at the time and already the mother of two small children. Worried about her and their unborn baby, he says he asked everyone he knew about her condition and whereabouts, and tried every possible means to find her. Her relatives, who are members of the Absentee Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma, were also unaware of what was about to happen.
But Tarbox, like Christy Maldonado, the birth mother of Baby Veronica, had disappeared, refusing any contact or financial help from Simmons. As Baby Veronica’s case, Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl, was being discussed at the U.S. Supreme Court, Simmons was driving around northern Oklahoma looking for his pregnant girlfriend, completely unaware of what was transpiring without his knowledge or consent.
It was not until two days after his daughter, Deseray, was born in May that Simmons, who is non-Indian, learned the truth from the baby’s maternal grandmother. Janet Snake called Simmons to alert him that his daughter had been put up for adoption and pleaded with him to find a lawyer to put a stop to it.
Simmons contacted Tulsa attorney Don Mason, who is not only a battle-hardened veteran family law practitioner, but also a member of the Delaware Tribe of Oklahoma. He serves as chief judge in their the Delaware Tribal Court in Bartlesville and is also chief public defender in Pawnee Nation Tribal Court in Pawnee, Oklahoma. Mason is an expert on the Indian Child Welfare Act and its application in Oklahoma, which has 39 tribes and the second largest tribal population in the United States. On his client’s behalf, he filed a suit, Simmons v. Tarbox, to halt the finalization of the adoption and bring Deseray back to Oklahoma from South Carolina, where she has been living with an adoptive couple who do not have the legal authority or a court order to retain her.
“My client was cut off, lied to, left out of the loop, and never received any notice at all regarding the whereabouts of his child and the intent to remove her from the state of Oklahoma to South Carolina in this illegal adoption. His parental rights have been completely denied and abrogated by all of the attorneys and their clients in this case,” says Mason. “The only reason I got involved was because Deseray’s Indian grandmother called him to give him the heads up and asked him to intervene.”
Tarbox’s family concurs that they were also caught off-guard, having been kept in the dark about her plans to give the child up for adoption without first notifying Simmons or seeking placement with another family member. “We had no idea what was going on and we were not notified that she had even had the baby until May 15, which was two days after she was born,” says Jana Snake, Tarbox’s sister, who is fully supporting Simmons in his quest to obtain custody of his daughter. “She cut us off and didn’t tell anybody what she was doing. But I knew that [this adoption] wasn’t right. It was illegal and I knew the tribe needed to be notified. So I told my mom to call him and call the tribe to stop it, but it was already too late.”
By the time Simmons was even able to dial Mason’s phone number, Baby Deseray had already been spirited away to South Carolina, a state known to be a safe haven for quickie private adoptions to wealthy couples seeking domestic babies in the United States. Time Magazine ran a feature story in 1984 entitled “Newborn Fever—Flocking to an Adoption Mecca,” in which South Carolina’s questionable adoption practices are described as “a unique blend of tax laws, aggressive lawyers and open-minded newspapers.” Home studies, it says, are “are routinely waived by South Carolina’s lenient family-court judges.”
These practices, say legal experts, have led to a deeply dark underbelly in the U.S. adoption industry that is little different than human trafficking, and in direct violation of the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. “There’s no question that this is human trafficking at its worst. It’s the selling of infants and children to the highest bidder,” says Mason. “These kids generate huge legal fees in the process and there is a lot of fee splitting among attorney and adoption practitioners in keeping the assembly line moving.”
Tulsa attorney Mike Yeksavich handled the adoption of Baby Deseray in collaboration with the law firm of Bado and Bado, an Edmond, Oklahoma-based adoption team. Together, the two law firms coordinated the adoption with attorney Raymond Godwin and Nightlight Christian Adoptions in Greenville, South Carolina. Godwin is also the attorney who handled Veronica’s adoption to Matt and Melanie Capobianco in 2009. Veronica’s adoption, which also went through without notification to the birth father, Dusten Brown, or the Cherokee Nation, has become the most expensive, litigious custody battle in U.S. History.
Indian Country Today Media Network has also learned that in addition to the fact that no Interstate Custody for the Protection of Children (ICPC) paperwork was filed in the case prior to Deseray’s removal from the state, Yeksavich also took the additional step of having himself appointed as the legal guardian of the baby to ensure her speedy adoption in South Carolina. Additionally, Paul Swain, the Tulsa attorney representing the Capobiancos in Oklahoma, also represents Godwin.
Bado and Bado, according to the Oklahoma Bar Association website, has had numerous complaints filed against it and was publicly reprimanded by the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys Board of Trustees in 2009 for the mishandled adoption of a Native child to a Kentucky couple.
In their review, the board demanded then that the firm “cease and desist” from the following: Conduct in which they represented themselves as an adoption agency, and not an adoption law firm; providing legal advice and counsel to birth mothers while also representing adoptive parents; holding out employees as “independent contractors”; permitting non-lawyers to practice law or explain legal issues to clients or other parties; involving themselves excessively with birth mothers whom they do not represent; and neglecting to promptly address tribal enrollment, in addition to other sanctions.
Bado and Bado could not be reached for comment by deadline on this story.
It’s the lack of oversight on the adoption industry, combined with acts of this nature, say legal experts, that led to the legal Gordian’s Knot that became the highly contentious and emotional Baby Veronica case that went to the Supreme Court.
In fact, Indian Country Today Media Network has learned that Raymond Godwin allegedly told another lawyer in South Carolina, who declined to be identified, that he placed “upwards of 50 Native American children from North Dakota” last year alone. In that conversation, Godwin said that Indian children are easier to place, “because they’re lighter-skinned.”
Even worse, says Mason, is the blatant marketing and selling of Indian children by lawyers who make anywhere from $25,000 to copy00,000 in legal fees for these children. “Anyone can do the math and realize that this is an enormous industry in the trafficking of Indian children,” says Mason. “And they’re preying on poor, uneducated Native women who are in poverty and have no idea what’s going on and don’t know any better, which is precisely why ICWA was enacted in the first place. They are predators who do everything in secret to prevent the biological fathers and the tribes from blocking the flow of income they receive off these adoptions.”
Mason says that before Simmons had even received notice on this case, Yeksavich had already filed a motion in Oklahoma County in early July to dismiss the case in Oklahoma courts. Godwin filed a motion for adoption proceedings in South Carolina at the same time in a coordinated effort to push the adoption through. Simmons was only notified of the proceedings in South Carolina on July 24 for the adoption hearing in South Carolina on July 25, which he had no way or means to attend with less than 24 hours to respond to a court action a thousand miles and five states away. As was the case for Baby Veronica’s father, Dusten Brown, the wheels had already been set in motion months before to cut him completely out of his daughter’s life.
Experts say that by the very nature of complicated and conflicting interstate laws and procedures that adoption attorneys are able circumvent not only mainstream adoption law, but the federal laws involving the Indian Child Welfare Act, as well, which has lead to chaos and confusion for judges, attorneys, birth parents and adoptive couples who may be located in multiple jurisdictions. “I came into this case trying to put the brakes on,” says Mason. “But by the time I even got a hold of it, an Order of Dismissal had already been pushed through without anyone knowing about it. Yeksavich never even gave notice of his intent to dismiss and rushed this right past the judge’s desk.”
Mason says it was a family court judge in South Carolina who finally caught on to what was happening. “To the credit of the South Carolina judge, they realized that no ICPC paperwork had been filed and refused to finalize the adoption,” says Mason. “Under the law, this child has been illegally kidnapped from Oklahoma and the judge there appointed Shannon Jones to represent my client there.”
Jones, who also represents Dusten Brown in South Carolina family court, has a thorough understanding of the Indian Child Welfare Act. She is also an expert in the Uniform Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act.
In the meantime, Mason says he intends to pursue full custody for Jeremy Simmons, even if he has to file an adoption action in Creek County, Oklahoma court for Deseray to be adopted by her father. “These shady adoption practices have to stop,” says Mason. “It is the buying and selling of human beings, which is unconscionable in its vast application in the United States. Its tentacles reach far and wide and one of the only good things to come out of Adoptive Couple is that Dusten Brown has brought to light the shady practices of an adoption industry that actively worked against his parental rights from the beginning. To his everlasting credit, he dug in and fought and he should be commended for that.”
Canada’s shameful colonial history as it relates to Indigenous peoples and women specifically is not well known by the public at large. The most horrific of Canada’s abuses against Indigenous peoples are not taught in schools. Even public discussion around issues like genocide have been censored by successive federal governments, and most notably by Harper’s Conservatives. Recently, the new Canadian Museum for Human Rights refused to use the term “genocide” to describe Canada’s laws, policies and actions towards Indigenous peoples which led to millions of deaths. The reason?: because that term was not acceptable to the federal government and the museum is after all, a Crown corporation.
Aside from the fact that this museum will be used as a propaganda tool for Canada vis-à-vis the international community, Harper’s Conservatives are also paying for targeted research to back up their propaganda as it relates to murdered, missing and traded Indigenous women. This is not the first time that Harper has paid for counter information and propaganda material as it relates to Indigenous peoples, and it likely won’t be the last. However, this instance of soliciting targeted research to help the government blame Indigenous peoples for their own victimization and oppression is particularly reprehensible given the massive loss of life involved over time.
The issue of murdered and missing Indigenous women was made very public by the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC) several years ago through their dedicated research, community engagement and advocacy efforts. Even the United Nations took notice and starting commenting on Canada’s obligation to address this serious issue. Yet, in typical Harper-Conservative style, once the issue became a hot topic in the media, they cut critical funding to NWAC’s Sisters in Spirit program which was the heart of their research and advocacy into murdered and missing Indigenous women.
To further complicate the matter, any attempts for a national inquiry into the issue has been thwarted by the federal government, despite support for such an inquiry by the provinces and territories. One need only look at the fiasco of the Pickton Inquiry in British Columbia to understand how little governments in Canada value the lives of Indigenous women, their families and communities. The inquiry was headed by Wally Oppal, the same man who previously denied the claims of Indigenous women who were forcibly sterilized against their knowledge and consent. The inquiry seemed more interested in insulating the RCMP from investigation and prosecution than it was about hearing the stories of Indigenous women.
Now, the Canadian public has to deal with a new chapter to this story – the sale of Indigenous women into the sex trades. The CBC recently reported that current research shows that Indigenous women, girls and babies in Canada were taken onto US ships to be sold into the sex trade. While this is not new information for Indigenous peoples, it is something that Canada has refused to recognize in the past. The research also shows that Indigenous women are brought onto these boats never to be seen from again.
The issue of murdered and missing Indigenous women has now expanded to murdered, missing and traded women. One might have expected a reaction from both the Canadian government and the Assembly of First Nations (AFN). Yet, the day after the story hit the news, the AFN was tweeting about local competitions and the federal government was essentially silent. I say essentially, because while all of this was taking place, the federal government put together a Request for Proposals on MERX (#275751) to solicit research to blame the families and communities of Indigenous women for being sold into the sex trade.
Instead of making a call for true academic research into the actual causes and conditions around Indigenous women, girls and babies being sold into the sex trade, the federal government solicited research to prove:
(1) the involvement of family members in their victimization;
(2) the level to which domestic violence is linked to the sale of Indigenous women into the sex trade; and
(3) even where they are investigating gang involvement, it is within the context of family involvement of the trade of Indigenous women.
The parameters of the research excludes looking into federal and/or provincial laws and policies towards Indigenous peoples; funding mechanisms which prejudice them and maintain them in the very poverty the research identifies; and negative societal attitudes formed due to government positions vis-à-vis Indigenous women like:
rapes and abuse in residential schools;
forced sterilizations;
the theft of thousands of Indigenous children into foster care;
the over-representation of Indigenous women in jails;
and the many generations of Indigenous women losing their Indian status and membership and being kicked off reserves by federal law.
The research also leaves out a critical aspect of this research which is federal and provincial enforcement laws, policies and actions or lack thereof in regards to the reports of murdered, missing and traded Indigenous women, girls and babies. The epic failure of police to follow up on reports and do proper investigations related to these issues have led some experts to conclude that this could have prevented and addressed murdered, missing and traded Indigenous women. Of even greater concern are the allegations that have surfaced in the media in relation to RCMP members sexually assaulting Indigenous women and girls.
This MERX Request for Proposals is offensive and should be retracted and re-issued in a more academically-sound manner which looks to get at the full truth, versus a federally-approved pre-determined outcome.
It’s time Canada opened up the books, and shed light on the real atrocities in this country so that we can all move forward and address them.
