Mashpee tribe’s leader, wife, owe $37,000 in unpaid taxes

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Mashpee tribe’s leader,  

wife, owe $37,000 in   

unpaid taxes

By Tenner Stening
Posted Jan 13, 2019

MASHPEE — The leader of the Cape Cod tribe battling the federal government to secure his people’s reservation and save a beleaguered casino project owes, along with his wife, tens of thousands of dollars to the IRS.

Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Council Chairman Cedric Cromwell and Cheryl Cromwell, a tribal council member, owe $36,901 in unpaid federal taxes, according to a federal tax lien notice filed last year with the Registry of Deeds in Taunton.

In addition, Cedric Cromwell has been found in contempt during the couple’s ongoing divorce for failing to pay their mortgage, household bills and legal fees, according to court documents. As part of that proceeding, Cheryl Cromwell’s attorneys have accused her husband of financial mismanagement and hiding money.

The tribe has had to cut jobs and is struggling to maintain services as it deals with its own burgeoning debt to the backer of a proposed $1 billion casino-resort slated for Taunton, the future of which is in doubt after a successful legal challenge and wide-ranging opposition to legislation that would secure the land needed to move forward with the project.

The unpaid taxes owed by the couple date back to 2010. A sum of $34,481.44 was assessed June 4 on their Attleboro home, located at 8 Seanna Road, an addition to $2,419.63 that had been assessed on Dec. 9, 2013, according to the July 31 filing.

Cedric Cromwell’s address on the documents is listed as 95 University Avenue in Westwood.

Officials have made a demand for payment of the liability, but it remains unpaid, the filing says.

In a statement, Cedric Cromwell said a payment plan has been worked out with the IRS, but did not offer details. As of Sunday, an IRS official had not provided more information on the status of the debt or the plan Cromwell referenced.

Cheryl Cromwell did not respond to a message requesting comment for this story. The couple’s contentious divorce included an intervention by a tribal attorney seeking to keep details of the tribe’s finances out of public view, and allegations by Cheryl Cromwell’s attorney that her husband has a “well-documented history of ... transferring, squandering and secreting funds.”

Their debt to the U.S. government isn’t the only liability with which the Cromwells are contending. The tribe had racked up $440 million in debt to Genting Malaysia — the financial backer of its planned casino — which recently wrote off its investment in the tribe as a loss, according to the international casino developer’s third quarter report.

After the news, Cromwell warned that his government would have to close programs and lay off another round of employees, warnings he has doubled down on as the tribe pursues legislation that would secure its land-in-trust and potentially save the casino project. In response to, among other things, increasing financial pressure from Genting, the tribe had to lay off 31 employees over the past year.

The tribe has had to borrow millions of dollars to fight a lawsuit brought by neighbors of the proposed First Light Casino & Resort. The U.S. Department of the Interior in September reversed a 2015 agency decision under the Obama administration that had taken 321 acres of land in Taunton and Mashpee into trust, effectively creating a reservation. Millions have also been spent lobbying Congress and the Interior Department, and fighting two separate legal battles — one contesting the agency’s September ruling, and another defending the tribe’s trust eligibility.

As the tribe’s financial situation has deteriorated and prompted questions about the fate of the tribe’s reservation status and operations, Cromwell’s handling of his personal finances has also been questioned throughout the divorce proceeding in Taunton.

Cheryl Cromwell’s divorce attorney, Marc Grimaldi, wrote in a letter that her husband has a “documented history and pattern of making unilateral financial decisions, not involving Cheryl in family finances and ... mismanaging finances by overspending or squandering funds,” according to court documents.

Grimaldi did not respond to numerous phone calls requesting comment.

Filings also show that Cedric Cromwell has disobeyed court orders mandating payments to bring their mortgage current, pay households bills and pay his wife’s attorney for outstanding legal fees. Cromwell also failed and refused to provide additional financial documents as per the orders of discovery in the case, according to court filings.

As a result of failing to pay outstanding bills and bring the mortgage current, as required by court order, Cromwell was found guilty of contempt, according to the documents. He was ordered, again, to provide discovery documents, and make all payments due, including bringing current all outstanding household bills by Oct. 30.

“The details of the divorce are a private matter and subject to a non-disclosure agreement,” he said.

The court files also shed a limited light on Cromwell’s personal business dealings, citing several of his Delaware-based companies that his wife’s attorneys have attempted to subpoena to disclose financial information.

On July 12, Grimaldi moved to compel Cedric Cromwell to produce financial documents in response to three keeper of record subpoenas of his companies: New Light Concepts LLC, and Lite Works LLC and One Nation LLC. Cromwell had failed to do so previously, according to court records.

New Light Concepts LLC was formed on Jan. 1, 2017, according to Delaware’s corporation records, and Lite Works LLC was incorporated on Oct. 9 that same year.

A fourth company, Platform 8, is also cited in court documents. According to an Oct. 19 court filing, Cromwell received $50,000 from Platform 8 for “consulting services.”

It is unclear, based on the court documents, what purposes the companies serve.

Cromwell said they are “perfectly legal” and do not violate any conflict of interest laws with respect to his role as chairman, but declined to provide additional information.

“They are unrelated to the Tribe and Genting,” he said.

A subpoena was also issued against the tribe and its keeper of record. Tribal attorney Mark Tilden appeared in court and moved to quash it, citing tribal sovereign immunity, documents say.

Cromwell is “gainfully employed as chairman” and has ownership interests in other businesses, according to the probate documents. His salary as chairman was $181,794, according to a copy of the tribe’s budget for fiscal year 2018. That amount is down from $219,186 in fiscal year 2017, according to the budget document obtained by the Times.

The tribe’s financial and other government records, unlike that of local, state and the U.S. government, are not publicly available because of its sovereign nation status. Even members of the tribe, as in the case of the Cromwells’ divorce, have struggled to secure information about the tribe’s finances.

Cromwell’s wife stated in the probate documents that she had “inadequate income and resources to pay for the costs of the litigation.” Cheryl Cromwell made $84,255 as a tribal council member in 2018, which was down from $92,496 in 2017, according to the budget.

Cedric Cromwell, through a spokesman, did not respond to questions about the current status of salaries for tribal council members.

Since his rise to power in 2009, Cromwell has repeatedly come under fire for his handling of the tribe’s finances, and factions critical of his administration have called for more transparency, rebuking attempts to raise the salaries of council members, including his own.

Those groups have, throughout the course of Cromwell’s tenure, attempted to rally tribe members to force open the administration’s books, including its casino records, and to protest the periodic silencing and shunning of members who’ve raised questions about its finances.

In the early days of the pursuit of the Taunton casino, Cromwell saw his salary increase 42 percent from $125,453 to $178,200. His pay hike was tied to a vote on Aug. 31, 2015, that brought pay for tribal council members in line with officers in other tribes and municipal governments. Future raises were tied to casino milestones.

Based on that 2015 vote, Cromwell’s pay could have increased five times to a high of $330,200 if the casino opened and generated $12 million in revenue, according to a document provided by tribe members in the past.

According to a Dec. 19 filing, the Cromwells will engage in mediation with a retired judge, and are scheduled to meet in court again on March 6.

https://www.capecodtimes.com/news/20190113/mashpee-tribes-leader-wife-owe-37000-in-unpaid-taxes