There's a more widely known group, Texas Cherokee Nation, that was run by Pappy Hicks. The two are very different groups.
This one is a pure scam.
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http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1554/is_n1_v19/ai_13571833/pg_4/?tag=content;col1Risky business: a decade of daredevil finance and other games plays a hidden role in the health insurance crisis - Cover Story
Common Cause Magazine, Spring, 1993 by Jeffrey Denny
....Some of World Life's policyholders actually were covered by two reinsurance companies whose principal assets were laughably bogus. Among them were so-called "treasury bills" issued by something called "Sovereign Cherokee Nation Tejas." State regulators contacted the purported Indian tribe's office in Atlanta, Ga., to check out the treasury bills. They wound up speaking with the treasurer, who called himself "Wise Otter" and spoke with a pronounced British accent.
Wise Otter turned out to be Dallas Bessant, a British citizen and owner of the two companies. "Cherokee Nation Tejas is neither sovereign, Cherokee nor a nation," Nunn subcommittee investigators later reported. "It is i sham, run by a group of |white' or |Anglo' Americans for the sole purpose of financial self-enrichment."
And what backed the Cherokee Nation Tejas treasury bills? Items included a "life mask" of Marlon Brando the company claimed was worth $1.5 million; titles to movies such as Computer Beach Party, Distant Drums and My Girl Tisa; gold mineral leases, valued at nearly $100 million, for a site under a municipal parking lot in Central City, Colo.; and certificates of deposit from nonexistent financial institutions. The "tribe" was in such sorry financial shape that at one point its officers were denied credit to rent rooms at the Motel 6 in Dallas.--------------
http://www.frauddigest.com/fraud.php?ident=1247Dallas Bernard Russell Bessant (Sentence: 6 Months)
Matthew Bonar
Chief Wise Otter
Carlos Miro
Sovereign Cherokee Nation Tejas
Alan Teale
Action Date: June 15, 1998
Location: Birmingham, AL
Dallas Bernard Russell Bessant, alias Chief Wise Otter, alias W.O., was a British citizen who claimed to have created his own nation in the United States, the Sovereign Cherokee Nation Tejas. The Sovereign Nation was actually a 155 acre sandbar in the Rio Grande River in Texas created in 1967 when a hurricane changed the course of the Rio Grande on the Texas-Mexican border.
Bessant allegedly proclaimed himself "Chief Wise Otter" and issued $25 million in worthless Treasury Bills from the Sovereign Nation which were counted as valuable assets by several insurance companies which subsequently became insolvent. Bessant was also involved in the "leasing" of worthless stock to offshore reinsurance companies in order to inflate the assets of the companies. World Life Company in Pennsylvania was defrauded of $7.5 million. The claims from the insolvent companies were paid by the Pennsylvania Life and Health Guarantee Association.
Bessant and his co-defendant, Matthew Bonar, were charged with racketeering and wire fraud. Bessant was sentenced to six months' incarceration, three years' probation and ordered to pay $25,000 in restitution. Bessant returned to Texas. Bonar was sentenced to three years' probation and ordered to pay $40,000 in restitution and a $10,000 fine. Bessant was also associated with convicted insurance felons Carlos Miro, Alan Teale and Arthur A. Blumeyer, III.
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https://eee.uci.edu/clients/tcthorne/anthro/frauds.htmMan With Flair for Reinventing Himself Goes a Step Too Far
By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.
Published: June 3, 2004
Since Congress passed a law in 1988 allowing legitimate Indian nations to operate casinos, about 180 unrecognized tribes and loose-knit groups of people with Indian ancestry have petitioned the federal government to be recognized as American Indian nations, officials said.
The potential financial gain for these groups is sky high. Before he pleaded guilty halfway through a trial in Albany earlier this year, Mr. Roberts had persuaded a group of Chicago investors to sink $3.5 million into the defunct Tamarack Lodge in Ellenville, N.Y., under an agreement to build a casino, according to Robert P. Storch, the assistant United States attorney who prosecuted the case. (One of the investors was set to testify against Mr. Roberts at his trial, but the judge ruled that the prosecution had already proven Mr. Roberts' financial motive.)
It was not the first time Mr. Roberts had tried to elbow his way into an Indian tribe to benefit from gaming. In May 1996, he applied to become a member of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe, which owns Foxwoods in Connecticut, but officials there rebuffed him, according to testimony at his trial. He got a similar reception from the Mohegan Tribe of Connecticut, which owns the Mohegan Sun hotel and casino.
So in 1997, Mr. Roberts started his own tribe, forming a nonprofit corporation and dubbing it the Western Mohegan Tribe and Nation. He promptly tried to open a bingo hall in Granville, a small town near the Vermont border, arguing that he was immune to state laws against gaming. A state judge shut him down after the state attorney general filed a lawsuit. State officials say he tried again in 2002, this time buying equipment to outfit a bingo parlor at the Tamarack Lodge, which he and his partners by then owned. Today it sports a sign saying "Home of the Mohegans" and a ragged banner with an insignia of a black eagle over the door. Again he backed down after the state threatened to sue.
2) Another Bogus Case: The Sovereign Cherokee Nation Tejas (from Eva Marie Garroutte's Real Indians, p. 26)
"Chief Bear Who Walks Softly" (aka William Mr. Fry, Jr.) testified that this nation had been created by an act of God. A Senate Subcommittee, investigating the Teja's "tribes" illegal use of a seal easily mistaken for that of the federally-recognized Cherokee of Oklahoma, said the creator was more likely Col. Herbert M. Williams, a retired Air Force officer, as an "offshore tax haven" on a Rio Grande sandbar. The company had insufficient assets to its activities underwriting corporate insurance policies. Its assets included a Marlon Brando "life mask" (sadly lost or misplaced) and a gold mine (very similar in appearance to a parking lot). -------------
Global pirates: fraud in the offshore insurance industry By Robert Tillman
http://books.google.com/books?id=Rf_mHK98RNwC&pg=PA56&lpg=PA56&dq=sovereign+cherokee+nation+tejas&source=bl&ots=rvwtCl_pVX&sig=t9HimE4sKF_MUvvMBmxmbnM8-bQ&hl=en&ei=7MDSTLWpEcOqlAe56ZnQDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CCMQ6AEwBDgU#v=onepage&q=sovereign%20cherokee%20nation%20tejas&f=false-------------
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/DN-cherokeecasino_18met.ART1.North.Edition1.36b523c.htmlNo payoff in plan for Indian casino in Kaufman County
Cherokee tribe suing lawyer over deal it says it never agreed to
12:00 AM CST on Sunday, November 18, 2007
By RICHARD ABSHIRE / The Dallas Morning News
rabshire@dallasnews.com
The first clue that this was no routine lawsuit was when the judge threw one of the lawyers in jail.
JOHN F. RHODES/DMN
Lawyer Frank Hernandez thought he'd hit the jackpot with his idea to help secure a casino for the self-styled Sovereign Cherokee Nation Tejas. Instead, he's fighting allegations of fraud. It was the latest twist in a
Kaufman County case brought against Frank Hernandez by the self-styled Indian nation that once adopted him, dubbed him Gray Eagle, and named him its attorney general.
The Sovereign Cherokee Nation Tejas, not recognized by the federal government or other Cherokee tribes, has accused Mr. Hernandez of raising money from investors on the tribe's behalf to buy land for a casino the tribe says it didn't know about and doesn't want.....In the casino case, Judge Chitty ordered Mr. Hernandez jailed until he produced more than $6,000 whose ownership is at issue.
"Never before have I seen an attorney as defendant jailed for contempt," said William Lewis Sessions, who represents the Texas Cherokees.
Mr. Sessions calls Mr. Hernandez's action with the land misconduct. The suit accuses him of fraud. "We are close to filing a grievance with the State Bar of Texas," he said.
The lawsuit says Mr. Hernandez gave the land back to investors when
Principal Chief Bear Who Walks Softly, born William Fry Jr., called him on it.
The tribe has since waived any claim to the land, but Mr. Sessions plans to ask the court for more than $1 million in damages and legal fees from Mr. Hernandez.
Mr. Hernandez said he raised $1.3 million and bought 48 acres east of Terrell on Interstate 20 for $600,000 cash. More money went for architectural plans, engineering studies and monthly payments to Mr. Hernandez, Chief Bear and others.
Mr. Sessions and Chief Bear say another million dollars or so was raised and is now accounted for. They say any remaining money belongs to the tribe.
Setting a precedent
A Kaufman County Indian casino would be a gold mine, but there are hurdles.
According to Tom Kelly, spokesman for the Texas attorney general's office, Indian casinos are illegal in Texas. A case against the Kickapoo tribe's operation in Eagle Pass is on appeal in federal court.
But Mr. Hernandez said he had a strategy for success.
"It's not against the law in Texas to build a casino," Mr. Hernandez said. He claims that a legal precedent would oblige the state to take its case against a casino to the tribe's own Indian court first, then to federal court.
That would be a time-consuming process. "We would be operating the casino in the meantime," he said.
He also insists that Judge Chitty has no business hearing the case.
"In my opinion, the only institution that regulates Indians is the U.S. Congress," Mr. Hernandez said. "Judge Chitty has no jurisdiction. I don't know of another case in Texas where a judge has heard an Indian nation in court."
But Cherokee officials in Oklahoma dismiss groups like Chief Bear's as "wannabes."
"There is the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokees, and there are no others and there never will be," said Dr. Richard Allen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma in Tahlequah.
"Our history is so well-documented that it's hard for a new group to be [federally] recognized," he said.
The
federal government says Sovereign Cherokee Nation was formed in the 1970s by a retired U.S. Air Force colonel. But the tribe claims to represent descendants of Texas Cherokees going back more than 150 years.
In the early 1990s, the Sovereign Cherokee Nation Tejas drew the attention of the U.S. Senate when millions of dollars in the nation's bonds – described in a Senate report as "worthless paper" – turned up on companies' books as assets in an international reinsurance scheme that resulted in federal prosecutions."We've never been indicted or convicted of anything except standing our ground," Chief Bear said. "Right, wrong or indifferent, we've always acted on the advice of legal counsel. Our problem has been guys we trust trying to use the nation for their own benefit."
In its report, the Senate committee described Chief Bear's group as "neither sovereign, Cherokee, nor a nation ... a sham, run by a group of 'white' or 'Anglo' Americans for the sole purpose of financial self-enrichment."
Chief Bear said the committee said that "because I wouldn't accept their subpoena."
Chief Bear has little to say about himself except that he is a partially disabled veteran. Citizens of the nation have dual U.S. citizenship, he said, and are proud to serve.
He said his group is not seeking federal recognition because its treaty was with the pre-statehood Republic of Texas.
But he agreed that, "If we ever decide to do gambling, we would need to deal with the state." He put the chance of the state's allowing a casino at zero.
The nation's Web site describes multimillion-dollar investments that fund tribal programs, but Chief Bear did not provide details or say how many citizens the nation has.
Lawyer's interest
Mr. Hernandez....said he was drawn to the casino project for several reasons.
"It was for the money initially," he said. "I thought, 'I can prove they're a nation, and we can do a lot of good for Cherokees in East Texas.' It was interesting legally, whether we could formulate this and make it a reality."
Mr. Hernandez said Chief Bear knew of his casino plans and signed a contract giving him a one-third interest in the operation. He was also to own book and movie rights, and he was to call the shots.
He said Chief Bear had no problem with the project until a meeting in January 2004.
"Bear tried to convince me that I had not conveyed the land properly," Mr. Hernandez said. "I said, 'It's not how you got the land, it's how you use the land.' "
He said he once told Chief Bear, "I might be able to make a nation, but I'm not sure I have the right Indians."
Chief Bear said Mr. Hernandez was under an injunction not to recruit a band of Indians more to his liking but did so anyway, another issue in the case....
