Oglala Sioux Tribe Casino Employees Harassed Because Corruption Exposed

Employees at Prairie Winds Casino are being harassed as witch hunt for whistle blower erupts 

By Jeffrey Whalen 

Last week I wrote an article on the Prairie Winds Casino and unpaid balances concerning its hotel and restaurant.  Those unpaid balances equaled $315,000.00.  According to inside sources and documents that I personally observed, most are billed against former Oglala Sioux Tribal Council members. 

Since then, unidentified individuals started harassing casino employees in an attempt to find the persons who provided information.   This resulted in employees resigning because of too much pressure.  Instead, these employees should have been honored for trying to correct a bad situation.  Unfortunately, our tribe has an ordinance that prevents council members from getting involved in personnel issues.  I firmly believe that in terms of corruption the council has a duty to get involved to protect the whistle blowers rather than ignore their situation, especially when council members themselves are causing the corruption. 

Because of no whistle blower ordinance and when something is found to be illegal, most tribal employees will choose to ignore the situation rather than report it.  The reason is they do not want to be harassed, terminated from or forced to quit their jobs just like the casino employees were recently forced to do.  So my suggestion is to create a strong ordinance that protects whistle blowers and gives them bonuses, then we can see how fast crime and corruption within the administration disappears. 

Apparently some council folks knew the article was coming out and before it was actually published, one of the current Oglala Sioux Tribal Council members made a statement that bothered me (and I know who you are).  The person said, “who-ever is writing that article needs to be run off the reservation.” Well, I hope that person has now seen what was written and recognizes that there is a problem, not with me, but with the people who are running the system.   

There is one existing tribal council member who allegedly took approximately $30,000.00 from the casino which was supposed to be district allocation money.  Due to other events that are now transpiring, I am not at liberty to say who it is; you’ll just have to stay tuned.  This all seems to be unfolding like some sort of espionage movie with Superman’s arch enemy Lex Luther playing several of the main actors in disguise.  We could dub it Prairie Winds Casino-gate.  I do however have to say that if AKA, Lex Luther, keeps causing good folks to lose their jobs, I have already seen the documents and will not hesitate to publicly expose him immediately. 

There was a resolution introduced into one of the Tribal Council committees that was aimed at prohibiting council members from gambling at our casino.  One of the tribe’s attorneys drafted it up at the request of James “Tobe” Big Boy, who is a Council Representative from Medicine Root District.  With all the alleged theft going on and again allegedly by the former administration, the submittal of this type of resolution makes perfect sense and perfect timing.  When discussed last week in the Judiciary Committee, there was heated debate basically because some of the existing council members did not want their play taken away from them.  There was a motion to table and the motion passed.  Now it is going back to the districts for them to vote on.   

To the persons who vigorously argued against the resolution: You were elected to represent the best interests of the people, not your personal interests in gambling.  You stumbled, but you are new and should be forgiven.  We are on the verge of proving our allegations concerning casino theft by the former administrations council members.  The people want our council members to stay as far away from the casino as possible to prevent further theft.  The Oyate doesn’t care if some council members have gambling addictions as long as they gamble somewhere else.  If you want to gamble at Prairie Winds then resign your post and gamble all you want.  We are not accusing the new council members of theft, but we have to insure it will never happen again and you are just caught up in the mix.  Therefore we have to exclude all council members from gambling at our casino.  When you represent the people, you must keep your personal interest at bay.   

The house cleaning at the Oglala Sioux Tribe is going to continue.  James “Tobe” Big Boy is one of the few council members who is insuring that financial transparency, honesty and accountability are actually going to happen as he promised.   

Mr. Big Boy is almost single handedly lifting the people out of years of oppression and he has the Oyate behind him.  Keep up the good work my friend because you are fast becoming the people’s champion.  The rest of you council members better get behind Mr. Big Boy and support him 100%. 

      Stay safe, be strong, ignore the illusion and fight for the truth.

 (Jeffrey Whalen