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The Seminoles want a judge to order that all assets wrongfully diverted be placed in a trust for the tribe's 2,800 members.
By JEFF TESTERMAN, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published June 13, 2002
TAMPA -- The Seminole Tribe of Florida claims its former operations manager and three other ex-employees used a computer services company and phony invoices to defraud the tribe of more than $4-million.
In a lawsuit filed in Broward Circuit Court, the Seminoles ask that a judge order all assets wrongfully diverted from the Seminoles be placed in a trust for benefit of the tribe's 2,800 members.
"It's clear that these folks were just helping themselves to tribal assets," said Donald A. Orlovsky, the tribe's West Palm Beach attorney. "This lawsuit, as well as several others, is part and parcel of the tribal council's commitment to clean house and to try to put financial matters back on track."
The suit also alleges that the former employees collected secret profits by installing special software on the tribe's gambling devices, used tribal credit cards to buy online pornographic services, and siphoned off tribal funds to help pay for a hotel in Nicaragua and to establish an offshore Internet gambling site.
Orlovsky said he believed details of the acts alleged in the suit would provide a road map for a federal task force investigating corruption within the tribe. In an inquiry begun three years ago, FBI, IRS and U.S. Department of Interior agents targeted James E. Billie, the popular Seminole chairman who was removed from office by the tribal council a year ago.
Billie is not named in the latest lawsuit, though his signature is on invoices for $1.65-million, $611,725 and $295,725 for computer services that tribal attorneys say were never authorized by the tribal council or received. The money was paid to Virtual Data Ltd., a corporation in the Central American nation of Belize. Virtual Data was set up by Timmy Wayne Cox, Billie's operations manager, and Danny H. Wisher, a $125,000-a-year computer consultant hired by the tribe.
Cox, Wisher, Virtual Data and a second company run by Wisher called Information Systems Solutions are named as defendants in the suit. Also named are Michael Scott, who worked for Wisher, and Michael Crumpton, a general contractor who is Wisher's son-in-law and oversaw renovation of the Legends Hotel in Nicaragua for Cox and Wisher.
Cox is a former Georgia police officer who lost his state certification for lying. He later joined the tribe's personnel department and handled urine testing. After Billie "unilaterally delegated" operations control to Cox, the suit says, Cox solidified his authority with threats to fire any tribal employee who tried to bypass him by speaking to the elected tribal council.
Cox handled talks with Hard Rock Cafe Casinos for the tribe and negotiated a $500,000 consulting fee from casino developer the Cordish Co., as well as an exclusive agreement to set up Hard Rock franchises in Central America.
Thereafter, Cox and Wisher engineered a $3.5-million deal to buy the Legends Hotel in Nicaragua and locate a Hard Rock Cafe there.
The tribe's suit says Wisher and Cox directed Crumpton to forward fraudulent invoices to the tribe for work that was never done at the hotel or services whose costs were grossly inflated. Records show that Information Systems Solutions billed the tribe $83,720 for Crumpton's services at a rate of $80 per hour.
Cox and Wisher were fired by the tribe last year in the midst of a special audit of tribal finances.
The lawsuit claims Cox and Wisher also funneled tribal money into an Internet gambling enterprise in Belize City, jeopardizing the tribe's Florida gambling businesses. The Seminoles derive most of their income from high-stakes bingo, video gaming machines and small-stakes poker at reservation casinos, but the U.S. Department of Justice has held that Internet gambling sites are illegal.
At tribal casinos, the suit says, Cox and Wisher made "substantial" personal profits by secretly making software changes to gambling devices. The lawsuit didn't elaborate on that point.
In addition, Cox and Wisher used tribal charge cards for personal expenses, the lawsuit says. Tribal records indicate Cox charged the tribe for jewelry, gifts and travel for his girlfriend, and "thousands of dollars" worth of computer access to online pornographic Web sites and chat rooms.
Steven J. Polhemus, an attorney representing the defendants, did not return a call from the Times seeking comment.