Havre businessman faces sentencing in Chippewa Cree bribery

GREAT FALLS, Mont. (AP) – A federal judge cancelled a sentencing hearing and scheduled a May trial for a Havre businessman linked by authorities to a wide-ranging bribery case on Montana’s Rocky Boy’s Indian Reservation.

U.S. District Judge Brian Morris said Thursday he would allow Shad James Huston to withdraw the guilty pleas he entered last August on charges of theft, bribery and failure to file currency transaction reports.

Defense attorney Michael Sherwood told the court that prosecutors attempted to renege on their commitment not to seek punishment against Huston for crimes he did not admit.

Authorities have said leaders of the Chippewa Cree Tribe handed out millions of dollars in contracts in exchange for kickbacks. An investigation by federal law enforcement has yielded convictions of more than a dozen people in the case.