"Where is Sen. John McCain when you need him? Graced with the charismatic Gov. Sarah Palin on the campaign trail, the Senator, who is hoping the good Arizonians will send him back to Capitol Hill for another term, has turned a deaf ear to the cries of tribal reformer Gary Sprague, a Saginaw Chippewa Indian who is the crypt keeper to all the secrets of corruption on his reservation in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan. “I know the truth of what is really going on around this reservation,” said Sprague, the brother of the mendacious SubChief who provided false testimony against superlobbyist Jack Abramoff in the Senate Indian Affairs Committee six years ago. “I know all about the fraud, the alleged crimes by nonIndian tribal police against Indians, money laundering, embezzlement, extortion, and how a group of whites who don't even belong here are putting fake Indians onto our rolls in order to vote themselves into office. The problem is that I know too much, and so the powers that be are trying to shut me down.”

After having acquired substantial paperwork documenting the fraud in his Tribal Council, Sprague, who is set to appear before the tribal judge, Bruce E Plackowski, on May 19, faces the prospect of spending at least three years in prison over hearsay. His legal troubles started in March of 2009 when the cancer survivor confided in his personal physician, Dr. Daniel Radowski, that he was upset about efforts of the previous Administration of Chief Fred Cantu to add more fictitious Indians onto the membership rolls in order to retain control of the Saginaw Chippewa's Tribal Council – and by extension, the tribe's lucrative Soaring Eagle Casino & Resort. “I told Radowski how upset I was,” Sprague said. “I said 'I feel like taking them out'. Of course saying what I felt like doing and actually doing it are two different things. I never intended to harm anyone. I was just venting to my doctor, who seems to be sympathetic to my concerns."

However, soon after the exchange, tribal police arrested Sprague while he was driving his two Indian daughters, who were not yet teenagers, around the reservation. Spectators were horrified to see the tribal elder, who is widely viewed as a "good man," handcuffed and taken away in a police car while tribal police pointed guns directly at the heads of his polite little girls who remained sitting in the car, crying. While the activist, who has been educating other tribal members about the fraudulent practices of previous tribal administrations, is known to be a straight talker, if not brutally honest, he has no history of violence nor do any tribal members believe Sprague would physically harm anyone."

Get the Story:
Susan Bradford: Railroading the Abramoff Witness Who Knows Too Much (The Conservative Camp 3/28)

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