Charges made against convicted tribal leader’s company

HELENA, Mont. (AP) – Representatives of a pipe company started with money embezzled from the Chippewa Cree Tribe pleaded guilty Wednesday to falsely claiming to be a minority-owned business controlled by a former tribal leader who was later convicted in a corruption investigation.

The claim that former state legislator and Chippewa Cree Construction Corp. CEO Tony Belcourt owned 51 percent of MT Waterworks LLC gave the company an advantage when competing for government and tribal contracts as a disadvantaged business enterprise, Assistant U.S. Attorney Carl Rostad said in court documents.

But Belcourt joined the new company in 2010 as an equal partner with two non-Native Americans and he had no role in its management, prosecutors said. Belcourt’s ownership also was diluted when he split his share of MT Waterworks with James Eastlick Jr., who was a psychologist on the Rocky Boy’s Reservation and a partner in another business with Belcourt.

By exploiting a minority preference it was not eligible for, MT Waterworks made nearly $4.8 million in gross profits for work in Montana and South Dakota between March 2010 and December 2012, and with much of that work coming from Belcourt’s Rocky Boy’s Reservation, prosecutors said.

“The company was able to block legitimate competition and leverage its claim of `Indian preference’ to secure a majority, if not a virtual monopoly of the business in pipe and pipe supplies at Rocky Boy’s,” Rostad wrote in court filings.

Belcourt’s partners in the company were Kevin McGovern, a Billings businessman with experience in the construction industry, and Kent Boos, who previously worked for a Virginia-based plumbing wholesaler. The criminal charges were filed against the company, not the individual partners, according to the indictment unsealed Wednesday.

Boos represented the company in a plea deal with prosecutors and Boos entered a guilty plea to charges of false claim to Native American preference and false statements to the U.S. during a Wednesday court hearing. The plea deal calls for the company to pay a $350,000 fine.

U.S. District Judge Brian Morris gets the final say on whether to impose the agreed-upon penalty. The judge scheduled a Sept. 15 hearing.

The company’s attorney, Mark Parker, said Boos and McGovern had no role in representing MT Waterworks as a disadvantaged business enterprise. He instead pinned it all on Belcourt.

“We didn’t have any way to challenge the government’s accusations about what Tony was doing,” Parker said. “We really were stuck with what Tony did while he was flying the MT Waterworks flag.”

Court filings by the U.S. Attorney’s office cite emails from Boos to contractors touting MT Waterworks as a minority-owned company and invoking laws that require the company’s preferential treatment. The prosecutor declined to comment on Parker’s remarks or why Boos and McGovern were not charged.

Belcourt, a former Democratic representative from Box Elder, pleaded guilty in 2014 to stealing federal stimulus aid meant for tribal construction projects through a complicated scheme of shell companies and kickbacks. He invested $101,000 of that money as his stake in MT Waterworks.

Belcourt is serving 7 1/2-year prison sentence. Eastlick also pleaded guilty to multiple charges in the federal government’s wide ranging investigation of corruption on Montana reservations, and is serving a six-year sentence.