The late Elouise Cobell meets President Barack Obama at the White House. December 8, 2010. Official White House Photo by Pete Souza

The proverbial check is in the mail -- a federal judge has approved the final payment from the $3.4 billion Cobell trust fund settlement.

Judge Thomas F. Hogan today issued an order to distribute the long-awaited Trust Administration Class payment. The Garden City Group -- the firm that was appointed by the court to administer the settlement -- will now mail checks to hundreds of thousands of Indian beneficiaries who have been waiting for the money for nearly two years.

"We anticipate the first checks will mail Monday, September 15, 2014," the legal team said on CobellSettlement.Com. "Please note that checks may take 5-7 days to reach Class Members once they have been mailed."

The payments will total $941,587,623.06, or nearly $941.6 million. Each member of the class will receive a base payment of $869.

But many members will receive more, based on the level of activity in his or her Individual Indian Money (IIM) account. At least one person will receive about $10 million, according to a May report from the Associated Press.

Today's order caps off months of anticipation and delays. The payment was originally expected around Christmas 2013 but that date kept being pushed back after the turn of the new year.

Meanwhile, the Cobell plainttifs and the Garden City Group pointed the blame at the Interior Department. They said the federal government hadn't finalized the data needed to write and mail the checks.

That finally happened around August 30. Garden City Group verified the information and the plaintiffs filed a motion yesterday to finalize the payment. That's the motion the judge approved today.

The first payment from the settlement went out in December 2012. Every eligible beneficiary received $1,000 as part of the Historical Accounting Class.

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Final payments from Cobell settlement closer to being distributed (09/04)
Tim Giago: Greedy lawyers and government ruin Cobell settlement (08/27)
Still no word on Cobell payments as end of August approaches (08/20)