A federal grand jury is investigating the Butte County Indian tribe that wants to build a $90 million hotel-casino in Yuba County, an FBI spokeswoman said Wednesday.

FBI agents delivered subpoenas late last month to the tribal leaders of Enterprise Rancheria in Oroville, said Special Agent Karen Ernst.
"I can just confirm that that's what happened. We do have an investigation ongoing. Since it is ongoing, we wouldn't comment further."

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Sacramento declined to comment.

A tribal spokeswoman in Oroville had no comment.

The tribe's vice chair, Robert Edwards, disclosed the investigation in a statement issued Tuesday, criticizing the tribe for trying to disenroll 70 members.

 
Disenrollment proceedings are scheduled this morning in Palermo.

"We're trying to hold this Tribal Council accountable for their actions," Edwards said. "Some of it has to do with the casino. Later on, if they disenroll 70, it means they'll make more money. We're holding the Tribal Council accountable for their actions. That's the main issue."

Edwards said the subpoenas went to Tribal Chairman Harvey Angle, Council Secretary Lisa Angle, Treasurer Glenda Nelson and others.

Edwards said 70 tribal members were suspended in September and threatened with disenrollment for signing petitions seeking the ouster of Harvey Angle and four others from the council.

According to Edwards, the tribal constitution was recently amended to require that tribal members have a one-sixteenth blood quantum to be eligible to vote.

"This change has a major impact in decreasing the number of members allowed to vote at the disenrollment hearing," he said.

The tribe has asked the federal government to take into trust 40 acres on Forty Mile Road so it can build a hotel-casino in partnership with Gerald Forsythe, an Illinois entrepreneur and promoter of a motor sports track, also along Forty Mile Road.

The land is off-reservation, although the tribe considers Yuba County part of its "aboriginal territory."

The tribe has said it is "effectively landless" because it sold a 40-acre parcel to the state so it could build Lake Oroville.

That parcel, known as Enterprise 2, plus another 40 acres, called Enterprise 1, were purchased in 1915 and 1916 for the tribe by the federal government.

Enterprise 1 is in dispute and "has been inaccessible and lacking in any utility to the tribe," according to the tribe's application to BIA.

"Enterprise 1 is located approximately 10 miles east of Oroville, accessed only by a dirt road, in a remote and sparsely populated area. Not all of its 40 acres are appropriate for housing or other buildings, as some of the land contains steep slopes."

According to Edwards, "The thing is when Harvey Angle and them state we were a landless tribe, we're not a landless tribe. We have 40 acres."

James Cohen, an Oakland attorney handling the land issue for the tribe, said the matter is now in Washington, D.C., after making its way through the Bureau of Indian Affairs office in Sacramento.

"It is working its way through the agency," he said. "We don't have any estimate how long it will take to finish it."

He said BIA in Sacramento "was satisfied" with the environmental assessment the tribe prepared for the 40-acre property.

"The environmental assessment is extremely thorough, and our environmental consultant is certainly one of the most respected in the field," he said. "I don't think they'll find any problems with our application."

Cohen, who had no comment on the grand jury probe, said the tribe "remains firmly convinced that the resort hotel and casino will bring tremendous benefit to Yuba County and all of its residents."

Cohen said he was "sorry there are people still out there trying to fight it."

He noted that Yuba County voters have supported Indian gaming measures on the statewide ballot.

He asked how Marysville could allow card rooms but oppose the casino.

"This smacks of hypocrisy," he said. "I haven't seen the city condemn the card room or take any measure to overturn the card room ordinance."