Reznet

Indian Trust Judge Promises Ruling Will Include Dollar Figure

By Bill McAllister

The judge presiding over the nearly 12-year-old Indian Trust case told lawyers that he intends to place a dollar figure on the government's mismanagement of the individual Indian trust.

"I assure you that one way or another, the result of this case will be a dollar figure," Judge Robertson said during a pretrial hearing.

The judge said that the government did not want him to reach such a conclusion, but that he had long believed the public needed to know how much money is at stake in the long-running class-action lawsuit.

Judge Robertson previously stated that he wants the case, known as Cobell vs. Kempthorne, to be concluded after a trial that begins June 9.

"I've got to find some way to get this case over," he said during yesterday's three-hour hearing.

"My stewardship of this case will be something with a dollar sign," the judge stated.

"This is about dollars in the IIM (Individual Indian Money Trust)," Judge Robertson said. "Dollars in and dollars out."

At issue in the upcoming trial will be a claim by the Indian plaintiffs for $58 billion.

That is how much the plaintiffs say the government profited by its mismanagement and use of the Indains' Individual Indian Trust monies. Under trust law, the plaintiffs say that the trust beneficiaries are entitled to whatever benefit the government obtained from the use of their trust funds.

The trust was established by Congress in 1887 to hold the proceeds of government-arranged leases of Indian lands, mostly in the West. Numerous government studies and court rulings have held that the Interior Department breached its trust responsibility to the Indians almost from the inception of the trust.

Judge Robertson ruled in January that the government's planned accounting of what happened to the funds is impossible. He is now seeking other ways that the courts can offer justice to an estimated 500,000 Native Americans whose trust accounts were mismanaged by the government.

Government lawyers told the judge they will resist any effort to give a large sum to the Indians. They contend that little money is missing from the trust accounts.

Bill McAllister, a former Washington Post reporter, is Elouise Cobell's spokesman.

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