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Sources: Mashpee tribe’s chairman stripped of financial control

By Tanner Stening
Posted Jan 25, 2019

MASHPEE — The Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Council chairman is no longer in charge of the tribe’s finances.

On Wednesday, the council voted 7-0 to strip Cedric Cromwell of his fiduciary duties as chairman and in his role as president of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Gaming Authority, a five-member board charged with overseeing the tribe’s long-stalled gaming operation, according to sources who were present at the time.

Vice Chairwoman Jessie “Little Doe” Baird, Secretary Ann Marie Askew and council members Yvonne Frye Avant, Cheryl Frye-Cromwell, Winnie Johnson Graham, Carlton Hendricks and Winona Pocknett voted in favor of the motion, according to those sources. Tribal treasurer Gordon Harris and council member David Weeden abstained. Council member Rob Dias was absent.

The council also took a vote of no confidence in Cromwell, 9-0, with one abstention, a procedure traditionally used by members of a legislative body to remove a head of government from office, though it varies from government to government and does not necessarily result in any action.

David Pocknett, who was present at the meeting and previously served on the council as vice chairman, said the financial powers may now fall to Baird, who is second-in-command.

Cromwell’s former right-hand man Aaron Tobey Jr., who is running for a tribal council seat in the upcoming election, said he recommended the council take up a motion of no confidence last week after learning from a Cape Cod Times article that the chairman and his wife, council member Cheryl Frye-Cromwell, owe the IRS roughly $37,000 in unpaid taxes.

Tobey, who is now critical of Cromwell, was not present at Wednesday’s meeting.

Pocknett said Wednesday’s meeting was contentious at times.

The no-confidence vote is an indication the council finds Cromwell is not fit to hold his position, said Tobey.

“It makes sense to me that they should put him on a leash,” he said.

A tribe spokeswoman and several tribal council members did not respond to requests for more information about the vote on Thursday.

In response to a previous question about the tribe’s finances, Cromwell issued a statement Wednesday saying he would not disclose “tribal financial details to nontribal citizens with so many of our enemies out there looking to seize on whatever information they can in an attempt to sow confusion and destruction.”

“The Tribal Council and our governmental administrators regularly present detailed information and answer to tribal citizens,” he said. “We also have numerous internal accounting controls as our financial record keeping is subject to regular outside audits to ensure we maintain best practices in terms of accounting.”

The unpaid taxes owed by Cromwell and his wife 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 a federal tax lien notice filed last year with the Registry of Deeds in Taunton.

Cromwell also failed to produce financial documents in response to three keeper of record subpoenas of his private companies: New Light Concepts LLC, and Lite Works LLC and One Nation LLC, according to court documents.

He was also found in contempt during the couple’s ongoing divorce for failing to pay their mortgage, household bills and legal fees, and his wife’s attorneys argued that he has “well-documented history of ... transferring, squandering and secreting funds,” the documents say.

The revelations come as the tribe is contending with a $440 million debt to its financial backer, Genting Malaysia, which recently wrote off its investment in the tribe as a loss. That debt burden, which leaders say is contingent on the success of the tribe’s proposed $1 billion Taunton casino, has snowballed under Cromwell’s watch. It includes money for the casino plans, funds to pay lobbyists and money to run the tribe’s other operations.

In addition, the tribe has had to the borrow money to fight a lawsuit that threatens its reservation land in Mashpee and Taunton, after the U.S. Department of the Interior reversed a 2015 Obama-era ruling that took the 321 acres of land into trust.

Tobey said he believes Cromwell has abused his discretion as chairman, and that the tribal council should have a more active role in executive decision-making.

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 have 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.

https://www.capecodtimes.com/news/20190125/sources-mashpee-tribes-chairman-stripped-of-financial-control