Goshute group's attorney must pay bank $11,000

The attorney for a group of Goshutes who took funds illegally from a tribal bank account has been ordered to repay a portion of the funds.

Duncan Steadman will be required to repay $11,000 to Zions Bank as part of the sentence issued Monday by U.S. District Judge Tena Campbell. He will also serve one year of probation.

The sentence was the third of four sentences handed down in the case. The other three defendants are all members of the Skull Valley Band of Goshutes who were represented by Steadman when they used a fictitious court order to withdraw the money.

Steadman's attorney, Deirdre Gorman, told Campbell prior to the sentencing that while Steadman did accompany the group to the bank when they accessed the account, he did not take any of the money when they withdrew it. Instead, money withdrawn illegally from the account was used to pay him attorney fees.

Along with Steadman, all three tribal members have pleaded guilty to the charges and settled on the restitution to Zions Bank, and two of them have been given similar sentences.

Marlinda Moon was ordered to pay back $13,825 when she was sentenced in November by Campbell, while Sammy Blackbear was ordered to return $17,300 to the bank in August. Both were given one year probation.

The third member, Miranda Wash, is expected to be ordered to pay back $8,000. Her sentence was postponed in November, however, so that she could resolve several warrants in South Salt Lake and Murray justice courts. If the warrants cannot be resolved by Jan. 3, Campbell has said she will sentence her to federal prison.

Federal prosecutors say that the group used a fake court order that declared them elected officials of the tribe's Skull Valley Band and gave them access to the tribal account. Although the group did use some of the money for official tribal business, there are indications that they also paid themselves stipends and Steadman's attorney fees.

The three members say they took the money because federal dividends owed to them by the tribe were being withheld by Leon Bear, band chairman, because of political differences. The stipends were intended to reimburse that lost money.

Bear has pushed for the storage of high-level nuclear waste on the band's reservation, a proposal that has divided the small band. Elections for a new tribal chairman have been postponed four times by Bear, whose term expired last year.

The chairman has also been sentenced in federal court, when he was ordered to pay the Internal Revenue Service $13,101 for unpaid taxes and the Skull Valley Band $31,500 for duplicate stipends he billed the tribe. That restitution order, as well as three years probation, were issued in June.

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E-mail: jloftin@desnews.com