Shalom Baer Gee
Rapid City Journal
RAPID CITY, S.D. – A tribal council member representing the Medicine Root District on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation appeared Friday at the federal courthouse in Rapid City to face rape charges.
A federal grand jury charged Howard Rooks on March 21 with aggravated sexual abuse and sexual abuse. Rooks allegedly assaulted a 13-year-old girl on Aug. 13, 2023. Both charges carry the potential of a life sentence.
Rooks pleaded not guilty when he appeared in custody before U.S. Magistrate Judge Daneta Wollmann. Assistant Federal Public Defender David Barari accompanied him. Barari stood in for Jenn Albertson, the assistant federal public defender appointed to the case.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Heather Knox asked the judge to keep Rooks detained as his case is pending. She said there would be no way to ensure the community’s safety and the victim’s safety if Rooks is released in Kyle, and several children live at one of the locations the defense suggested for his release. The other location lacks electricity.
Barari said there is no risk Rooks would flee. He highlighted his past military service and his position as a councilman, which Barari said “speaks to the respect and establishment he has in the community.”
He said Rooks has family support, and his wife and daughter attended the hearing. The family has worked on getting electricity in the second location option, Barari said.
Wollmann released Rooks to Community Alternative of the Black Hills, a halfway house in Rapid City. She said the facility is an option when a defendant cannot be released into the community. Wollmann said she could not release Rooks where there are children.
The alleged victim’s mother told the Journal after the hearing she felt the judge was lenient, and there is evidence against him.
“I just want [her] to be heard, and I don’t want her hurt,” she said. “… and if there’s any other girls, they don’t have to be scared to come up and say something against him.”
Susan Shangreaux, director of the Oglala Sioux Tribe’s Victim Services program, told the Journal Rooks was suspended from the tribal council on Tuesday in a closed-door hearing.
Rooks appeared and voted on agenda items at the council’s Tuesday meeting, but he was absent from the Wednesday meeting.
The Journal reached out to Oglala Sioux Tribe President Frank Star Comes Out, Vice President Alicia Mousseau and Secretary Stacy Two Lance on Friday to confirm the suspension, but did not receive a response.
This article was first published by the Rapid City Journal and is reprinted here with permission.