Ousted Ute leaders file federal suit

FORT DUCHESNE, Uintah County — Two former members of the Ute Tribe Business Committee want a U.S. District Court jury to decide if their civil rights were violated when they were expelled from their elected offices.

Ousted tribal leaders Ron Wopsock and Luke Duncan last week filed suit against four business committee members, Secretary of Interior Gale Norton, numerous Bureau of Indian Affairs officials and the tribe's financial advisor.

In their lawsuit, Wopsock and Duncan claim they were illegally removed from their elected offices. According to court documents, business committee members Maxine Natchees, Smiley Arrowchis, Roland McCook and Richard Jenks Jr. met in secret in October 2003 with the encouragement of tribal financial adviser John Jurrius and voted to remove the two men.

Duncan and Wopsock allege that their removal was prompted by their having publicly criticized Jurrius' handling of the tribe's financial and energy resources.

In September 2003, the two filed a lawsuit that was critical of Jurrius and charged the Bureau of Indian Affairs with neglecting its fiduciary duty to the tribe by failing to monitor Jurrius' spending of tribal revenue.

Duncan and Wopsock were ousted when news of the lawsuit was made public. Shortly after, the business committee members who had expelled them passed a law prohibiting Duncan and Wopsock from seeking re-election to the tribe's governing body until 2007 at the earliest.

Duncan and Wopsock are requesting more than $18 million in damages.

The Ute tribal constitution permits any tribal member who is over the age of 21 and who has lived on the reservation to seek and hold office on the Business Committee.

Tribal documents filed with the court show that in the election held to fill the vacancies created by the expulsion of Wopsock and Duncan, both men received far more nominations than any other candidate. Those nominations were declared invalid, however, and the names did not appear on the election ballot.

An "unknown number of unnamed members of the Uintah and Whiteriver bands of the Ute Indian Tribe" are also named as plaintiffs in the court action.

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