Casino brings power struggle in Indian community

Political interference, questionable expenses, firings and resignations have left casino management in disarray, The Tribune, a newspaper serving suburban Phoenix, reported Tuesday.

"Money and greed are destroying this community," said Harlan Bohnee, one of three Gila River Casinos board members fired in what they call a power grab by the Tribal Council.

For more than a year, the casinos went without a general manager, and in March, the council fired all but one member of the board of directors, prompting top casino officials to quit, The Tribune reported.

"We are a proud, honorable people, but we have some among us who have been weak and given in to the power and the money," said Barbara Robles, former board member.

Even tribal Gov. Mary Thomas acknowledged that a faction on the council seeks more control over the tribe's most lucrative asset.

The Gila River Tribal Council started its effort to control the casinos years ago.

Among the first casualties was Gary Anderson, appointed in March 1994 to the new Tribal Gaming Commission.

Anderson told The Tribune he tangled with Councilman Bill Rhodes over the appointment of another board member.

In May 1994, Debbie Mercado, a close confidant of Rhodes', was appointed to the board of directors despite seven arrests and five criminal convictions.

But when Mercado applied for a gaming license, she listed only one arrest, and commission members voted to deny her a license because she failed to disclose the criminal convictions.

Rhodes responded by calling a special meeting of select council members in September 1994, Anderson said, and the council voted to remove Anderson and Thomas White, the two members of the commission that signed the statement affirming the license denial. Mercado was reappointed at the same meeting.

She was eventually fired in 1995 for an incident at a Tempe bar where she allegedly threatened other casino employees.

Mercado refused to be interviewed by The Tribune.

Rhodes would say only, "I did what was necessary and the council supported me."

The next person ousted was Donald Bliven, hired in May 1994 as director of security and surveillance.

The retired Air Force security officer said he was forced out of his casino job because he accused top casino officials of drug use. Bliven took his allegations to the Bureau of Indian Affairs but told The Tribune that the investigation ended after a top BIA official was hired as chief of operations at the casino a short time later.

Former BIA investigators on the Gila River Indian Community confirmed that an investigation was conducted but no charges were filed.

Bliven says he was targeted for termination by the Tribal Gaming Commission because word leaked out that he was cooperating with the BIA's drug investigation.

He said he was fired about the same time BIA official Peter Maybee was hired as casino chief of operations. Four of the five members of the casino board of directors had recommended Bliven for the job; only Mercado did not.

Among those that lobbied for Maybee was Robert Pease, a BIA criminal investigator for the community. His two children got jobs at the casino in the months leading up to the revocation of Bliven's gaming license, state gaming documents show.

Mike Donahue, the general manager of the casino at the time, said Maybee was hired because he was the most qualified applicant.

The upheaval continued in June 1997, when the board of directors hired James Calvello, a gaming consultant based in Florida.

Calvello, hired as the general manager, cost the tribe roughly $10 million over three months of employment, according to estimates from several former casino officials.

He ordered extensive remodeling at a cost of $4 million and bought $5.5 million worth of new slot machines for Wild Horse Pass Casino.

By August, state gaming and tribal commission authorities found out Calvello had been accused of financial irregularities while general manager of the Fort Randall Casino run by the Yankton Sioux tribe in South Dakota.

It cost the tribe $90,000 in severance to buy out Calvello's contract.

archive