Tiny Calif. tribe at center of federal investigation

Don Thompson

Tuesday, May 14, 2002 | 9:42 a.m.

BUENA VISTA, Calif. -- Most of the Me-Wuk Indians died during the original Gold Rush, killed by gold diggers or the diseases they brought to the Sierra Nevada foothills.

Now there is a second gold rush, this one over who will control the tiny remaining tribes -- and their potential for lucrative Indian casinos that may one day help California eclipse Nevada as the pre-eminent gambling state.

The dispute over one three-member tribe is at the center of a federal influence-peddling investigation reaching the highest levels of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Donnamarie Potts and her two adult children are the entire Buena Vista Me-Wuk tribe.

Potts grew up on the 67-acre Buena Vista Rancheria, 35 miles southeast of Sacramento, near gold country's Mother Lode. She lives there alone now, in a small house overlooking the valley oaks, rolling hills and grazing cattle of Amador County.

She expected to soon overlook a new neighbor: a $150 million casino operated by the Cascade Entertainment Group of Louisiana.

Construction was to begin last month -- until 31-year-old Rhonda L. Morningstar Pope of West Sacramento objected that she is the sole surviving blood-descendant of the tribe.

The federal Bureau of Indian Affairs agreed, concluding Potts isn't related by blood to the historical Me-Wuks. A federal judge put the casino on hold. The BIA's regional office ruled in Pope's favor last week, upholding a lower office's original ruling, but Potts is appealing both that decision and the judge's order.

Wayne Smith, the BIA's No. 2 official as Interior's deputy assistant secretary for Indian affairs, accused backers of the Buena Vista casino of fanning the controversy over attempts by a friend and former business partner to line up at least three tribes as clients.

Philip Bersinger used the old Bersinger and Smith Inc. letterhead to promise the Buena Vista Me-Wuks, the California Valley Miwoks and Washington state's Chinooks extraordinary access to Smith in exchange for thousands of dollars a month in consulting fees.

Buena Vista spokeswoman Jean Munoz said Smith arranged to bring Bersinger to a meeting with tribal representatives. A few weeks later Bersinger told a tribal attorney he "could solve the Buena Vista tribe problems at the BIA" in exchange for $25,000 a month and a negotiated percentage of the casino's projected gross venues, Munoz said.

Smith denied setting up the meeting or knowing of his friend's activities. In an interview with Indian Country Today, he accused Buena Vista backers of spreading news of the letters because they were upset he did not immediately reverse the BIA's initial ruling stripping Potts' control of the tribe.

That decision, he noted, endangers the more than $10 million Cascade Entertainment has invested in the tribe's effort to get permission to build the casino.

Munoz, in turn, denied involvement by the tribe, its attorneys, or the lobbyists it's hired in Washington, D.C., including Republican strategist Scott Reed. Last year Reed helped persuade Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., to drop a bill that would have reversed Congress' authorization for the Lytton Band of Pomo Indians to open a casino in a San Pablo card room near San Francisco.

She accused Smith of trying to make the tribe a "scapegoat" to draw attention from his own problems.

"When most people think of tribes, they think of large pieces of land with thousands of Indians on them," said Cheryl Schmit, founder of Stand Up for California!, which wants to limit tribal gambling.

But she said it's no coincidence that gambling interests seek out tiny tribes such as the Buena Vista Me-Wuks.

"They're small, they're easy to control and manipulate," Schmit said. "It's a tribal government that is outside the normal jurisdiction of the state of California. Basically, they're just giving the sovereignty of the tribe to the investor to do what they want -- build a casino at will."

Potts lives behind a locked gate, up the hill from a prefabricated tribal office where a flock of wild turkeys gobbled in the yard. She declined to be interviewed or photographed because she fears she will be targeted by vandals upset with her casino plans, Munoz said. Potts doesn't know her age because of confusion over Indian birth records that play a part in the legal dispute, Munoz said, but is in her late 50s.

If the casino is built, Munoz said Potts intends to use the tribe's share to help Northern California Indians of all tribes with scholarships, health clinics and the like: "She wants to put it back into her community."

The epicenter of the Buena Vista dispute is on an overgrown, tree-shaded ridge, past a junked pickup truck with old Grateful Dead decals decorating the windows. There, at least 80 unkempt grave sites hold the remains of Indians of various tribes -- some under concrete slabs and formal World War II veteran headstones, others merely outlined with stones or mounds of earth.

Pope "is very concerned about the casino plan because her father and her great-grandparents and her grandmom are all buried there, along with other relatives," said her attorney, Timothy Grieve. "She views that as sacred ground."

Potts wants it protected, too, Munoz said. The casino would be built several hundred yards away, leaving the cemetery undisturbed.

Now control of the rancheria revolves around legal sparring before the BIA and in federal appellate court over what it takes to legally form a tribe.

But the larger question is over money. Buena Vista representatives suggest rival tribes are trying to derail their casino application to block competition with other area casinos.

"Rhonda Pope didn't express any interest in becoming a member of the tribe until after the casino was announced," Munoz said. "Pope claims to be poor and destitute, yet she's been able to come up with significant money for legal fees. Which begs the question: Who's paying the bills?"

Grieve won't say.

While he said Pope wouldn't allow a casino on the rancheria, Grieve said he doesn't know if she would try for a casino elsewhere as would be a possibility if she wins control of the tribe.