Former tribal president convicted of stealing from tribe
Shalom Baer Gee
Rapid City Journal
RAPID CITY, S.D. — A federal jury in Rapid City found a former president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe guilty Thursday of stealing money from the tribe during his presidency.
Julian Bear Runner was convicted on six counts of wire fraud, one count of larceny, and one count of embezzlement. Bear Runner served one term as president from December 2018 to December 2020. The government claimed he took $80,000 between January 2019 and January 2020.
The wire fraud counts stemmed from six checks the tribe issued to Bear Runner for travel funds. Instead of using the money for travel, Bear Runner cashed the checks and spent the money primarily at the Prairie Winds Casino in Pine Ridge.
The six checks listed in the indictment were cashed between March 2019 and October 2019. At around $1,000 to $2,000, the total amounted to over $11,000. Assistant U.S. Attorney Megan Poppen said during closing arguments the $11,000 was just part of a total $80,000 Bear Runner stole from the tribe.
In order to prove the larceny and embezzlement counts, the government had to provide evidence Bear Runner intentionally defrauded the tribe of more than $1,000 and used the funds for his own benefit.
During the three-day trial before Senior District Judge Linda Reade, the government presented travel authorization forms, bank statements, casino receipts, and hotel registration forms that showed Bear Runner was not traveling during the dates for which he received funds.
Under the tribe's travel funding system, a check is issued to the employee or elected official ahead of travel after their travel authorization form is approved. Bear Runner's travel forms included supposed trips to Montana, Arizona, New Mexico, Washington, North Carolina, and other locations. Some of the travel dates conflicted with one another and he never returned the funds.
"He left a very lengthy paper trail," Poppen told the jury on Thursday.
Poppen said Bear Runner took advantage of the tribe's "unfortunate, archaic, old" travel authorization system. The case, however, was not about the system, she said.
"This case is absolutely about one person alone, and that's the defendant, Julian Bear Runner," she said.
Thomas Diggins, Bear Runner's defense attorney, argued the government did not prove his client had any intent to defraud the tribe.
"This was not a knowing act," Diggins said.
The defense attorney pointed to the difference between signatures on travel authorizations, and highlighted there were authorized people who could submit forms for Bear Runner. He said the former president relied too much on others to submit requests on his behalf and let him know if there were issues.
"I urge you to consider who Julian Bear Runner is," Diggins said.
He emphasized his connection to the reservation and the tribe.
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In rebuttal, Assistant U.S. Attorney Benjamin Patterson said, "We're not here to tell you Julian Bear Runner is a bad person, we're here to tell you he committed the crimes ..."
The judge ordered Bear Runner be taken into custody by the U.S. Marshals after she read the jury's verdict. Diggins asked the judge if she would instruct the marshals to allow Bear Runner's family to take his war bonnet and regalia he wore during the trial.
The judge said she couldn't tell the marshals how to conduct their role, but she supported the request. The marshals granted the request, but Bear Runner did not want to give the items up.
"I'm a prisoner of war now," he said.
Current Oglala Sioux Tribe President Frank Star Comes Out attended the trial on Tuesday and Wednesday. He told the Journal he came to observe.
Star Comes Out said Bear Runner was young when he took office. He was elected at the age of 33, the second-youngest in the tribe's history. In 1970, 32-year-old Gerald One Feather was elected.
"Was he prepared for it? I don't know. That's just something that's unfortunate, and I can't judge him," Star Comes Out said. "It's like I said, he's a young man who took on those responsibilities, and it didn't turn out too well for him."
In response to questions about the current travel authorization system, Star Comes Out said he's not sure exactly how the system operated when Bear Runner was in office, but it appears to be "pretty much the same."
"I think maybe we need to take another look at that and upgrade, obviously," he said.
Star Comes Out said the tribe will move forward from the situation.
"The tribe is a huge organization, and I think we can all learn from this in the future," he said.
Bear Runner's trial started the week after Howard Rooks, a tribal council member representing the Medicine Root District on the reservation appeared at the same federal courthouse on rape charges.
Rooks was indicted on March 21. Star Comes Out said the tribe doesn't have the evidence in the case. All they know are the charges. He confirmed Rooks was suspended from his position without pay on March 26.
"That's all we can do," he said. "And that was a shock for us again because it's our leadership."
This article was first published by the Rapid City Journal and is reprinted here with permission.
