Influence probed in tribal casino contacts

Don Thompson

Monday, April 22, 2002 | 10:06 a.m.

SACRAMENTO -- A top U.S. Interior Department official is distancing himself from a former California business partner's attempt to drum up business by claiming influence over federal decisions affecting Indian tribes and lucrative tribal casinos.

Wayne Smith, Interior's deputy assistant secretary for Indian affairs, was a chief deputy attorney general under former California Attorney General Dan Lungren.

After Lungren left office three years ago, Smith began a partnership with Philip Bersinger of Gold River, near Sacramento, that helped register card rooms -- establishments that offer limited gaming far short of the Las Vegas-style casinos established by California Indian tribes.

Smith and Bersinger moved to formally dissolve the consulting firm in December, shortly after Smith was named to the Bureau of Indian Affairs No. 2 position in late October. The firm was dissolved within the last month.

But that didn't stop Bersinger from using the partnership's old letterhead in solicitation letters to two Indian tribes, Smith acknowledged.

In February Bersinger wrote the Chinook Tribal Council asking for $1,000 a month to press the Oregon tribes' case for federal recognition, a highly sought, lucrative designation.

"I am in a position to be extremely helpful with this as well as other issues," Bersinger wrote under a Bersinger and Smith letterhead.

Bersinger, who also worked with Smith at the California attorney general's office, bragged about his long relationship with Smith. "On a more personal level, Wayne and I still vacation together, and he stays with me at my home whenever he comes to Sacramento (which is every 2-3 weeks to see his kids)," Bersinger wrote. "I could go on and on, but I think you get the picture."

Chinook tribal member Linda Amelia, in a telephone interview Saturday night from her Sacramento home, said she met Smith at a Republican event in Sacramento this winter and gave him a business card. She got a call from Bersinger a couple weeks later. When she asked how he got her name "his answer was 'you gave your card to Mr. Smith, didn't you?' He implied he got it from Mr. Smith."

Amelia acknowledged reviewing a draft of the letter Bersinger sent to the Chinook tribe, but said she made only grammatical changes.

Bersinger made a similar offer in conversation and in writing to the California Valley Miwok tribe last month, said tribal spokesman Tiger Paulk.

"He wanted $5,000 a month with no guarantees," said Paulk, who said he's been asked to speak with federal investigators within the next two weeks.

"He says, 'My friend Wayne Smith runs the bureau.' He says, 'Wayne and me go way back. Wayne is my friend,' " Paulk said. "He said he had contacts he could speak to that could do things for us."

After a tribal council meeting, the tribe decided "that's extortion. We said, 'No, we're not going to deal with this,' " Paulk said.

The Associated Press obtained copies of both letters.

"I had nothing to do with it," Smith said in a telephone interview Friday night from his Washington, D.C.-area home. "I wrote him a letter and told him I thought it was inappropriate -- the manner of doing business was inappropriate."

Bersinger did not return calls for comment.

Smith said he asked the FBI and the Interior Department's inspector general to investigate Bersinger's letters, as well as other documents of questionable validity that have surfaced since.

"I turned this entire matter to the FBI and to the inspector general in the office," Smith said. "I'll live with whatever they come up with."

Smith also disqualified himself from official dealings with Oregon's Chinook tribe "in order to be above even any appearance of impropriety." He said he knew of no issues involving the Miwoks currently being considered by his office. at his work number repeated calls ...

A descendant of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux in South Dakota, Smith also has served as chief counsel to the California Assembly Republican Caucus.