ICGPA

To:  Quarles & Brady Executive Committee

Fm: International Card & Game Players Association, Inc.

Dear Committee Member,

A potential problem exist in your Tucson office, of which you may or may not be aware. Our players union was forced to file a State Bar complaint against an associate from your Tucson office. It is our genuine hope, that your firm does not condone the conduct of Mr. Ochoa. His conduct is at best unprofessional, and at worst it is criminal. A copy of our complaint, with a lengthy explanation, is linked below to our blog: www.icgpa.org.

There can be little doubt that we have been the victim of seriously improper conduct by Mr. Ochoa. However, we are not bent on vengeance, or even punishment. What we are passionate about is equality and freedom. Freedom for the Sport of Poker and, equality for all U.S.citizens, including the Native American Indian Tribal communities.

We believe that Ochoa’s actions displayed extremely poor judgement and, intemperate behavior for a professional. However, it has served to awaken us to the intolerable circumstance our Native American Citizens languish under, due to government sponsored racial segregation and isolation.

Therefore, we are suggesting a radical departure from the traditional course of action taken by injured parties. We prefer instead, to focus on the potential positive outcomes that could, ultimately benefit everyone, born of these unfortunate events.

We are attempting a quantum leap into the Twenty First Century. We hoped that you might join with us in a new beginning. We all can understand that we have moved into a new era.  Unfortunately, tagging along under the protection of the taxpayers, is an unfathomable antebellum government institution that has survived far too long. We must all insist that the Bureau of Indian Affairs be removed from the public trough.

The BIA’s hold and control over the Indian Trust Lands must be broken.

We ask that your firm consider an alternative view regarding what is truly in the  best interest of your Native American clients. We encourage you to seriously consider supporting our effort, to remove the yoke of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, from the backs of the Native American communities. History has clearly established that the BIA is the single worst trustee ever to manage a trust.

We seek your help in acquiring the rights and liberties, too long denied to Native American citizens, who reside within the Bureau of Indian Affairs racial enclaves. We must do this for our fellow citizens, whose communities we have wrapped in barbed wire and trapped in isolation from the mainstream of America. But, we must also do it for mainstream America itself. It is essential to our collective soul as a Nation and, necessary for the dignity of all Americans; that we no longer fund, encourage, or permit communities to be separated by race or culture.

Recent events have made it evident that the racial enclaves mismanaged by the BIA from its inception, should be converted to fee simple titled land. Then delivered to Tribal governments to manage and control as private property. Native American communities can then operate under State charters along side all other communities within the mainstream of cities and towns.

Tribal lands owned and managed by tribal communities will ultimately become assimilated and equal under law to all other communities. The time is long overdue for the tribal governments to gain their property rights, so they can assume responsibility for managing their own affairs.

An Emerging Global Enterprise:

Involving the Indian communities in organizing the International sport of poker has long been a part of our business plan. We would like you to consider encouraging your client, the Pascua Yaqui Tribe, along with other Native American communities, to take advantage of their unique market position and, assist our players union in organizing the sport of Poker.

However, we cannot comprehend the wisdom of Ochoa’s counsel in advising the Pascua Yaqui Tribal Council to not even listen to our proposal. A part of which includes making them a gift of our profitable business?  Refusing to communicate with your adversary involved in a civil dispute, seems a strange legal strategy to us. Especially from a highly respected firm such as yours.

We know, without question, that decisions being made by lawyers within your Tucson office are not only unethical, they are myopic and, clearly not focused on the future. We are reaching out to you, with the sincerest of hope, that your vision of the future will begin to merge with ours, and we both can see opportunity instead of conflict. Perhaps we can make history, while freeing the country we love, of its last bastion of racism: The Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Please consider these facts:

Our union has had to endured a plethora of unethical and illicit shenanigans over the past five years. Many initiated from your Tucson office. Those events forced us to delve into the source of the chaos our State’s political subdivisions have been undergoing. We have documented our bizarre saga on our blog www.icgpa.org. It is very unsettling to be the brunt of attacks from the gambling industry, but it has forced upon us a real education in civics and government.

Worldwide, with very few exceptions, the gambling industry is barred by voters, from conducting business in their communities. It is not so much the act of gambling that people scorn; it is the gambling industy. An industry with a very poor pedigree and, a deservedly shoddy reputation, regarding their business practices. A reputation reenforced over the last five years, by the conduct of their industry policing agency in Arizona; the Arizona Department of Gaming.

It is hard to warm up to a business that is amoral and has no written ethics. “Anything goes” is the mantra of the gambling industry. The industry invites any and all, regardless of personal circumstances, to visit their facilities and fill popcorn buckets with their hard earned money. When their guests arrive, they are then plied with cheap food and liquor. These so called “suckers” are watched from behind one-way mirrors, as they dump their hard earned coins, into gambling industry rigged machines. In some strange way it seems a kind of perverse voyeurism. The gambling industry is an easy industry for voters to spurn.

However, in the last couple of decades, despite the will of voters in 49 of 50 States, the chance gambling industry has managed to access most of the major metropolitan markets. Unbelievably, they accomplished this coveted goal, without ever having to submit to the ballot box or the control of State authorities.

The gambling industry has even managed to acquire for themselves, a privately funded police force, which operates without prosecutorial control, within the State’s jurisdiction.  Neither State, nor Federal prosecutors, appear to hold sway over their behavior. While attempting to enforce their monopolistic claims, they pay no heed to state prosecutors or municipal governments. No doubt, this is not the last of the adverse social costs, for allowing the gambling industry unfettered access to our mainstream markets. Especially, without the direct control of state or prosecutorial authority.

For instance; has anyone thought to consider what harmful effects, might accrue to our children, from the 24/7 indiscriminate advertising of their bogus propaganda. The ads put forth the absurd proposition; that drinking and chance gambling constitute a quality life style. What affect upon youth might result from this constant flow of misleading ads? Flashy ads suggesting; anyone can acquire true wealth and happiness, simply by playing their slot machines. These false adds are not the ideas we wish to impart to our youngsters. However, my own grandchildren are already salivating to visit a casino.

How did the gambling industry’s fortunes turn so positive for them? They owe it all to the Department of the Interior. Like all government agencies they are always in search of a revenue stream to augment their budget. They needed one badly, in order to maintain their racial purification program, overseen by their bastard child: The Bureau of Indian Affairs. The BIA is a 186 year old racist institution. It was immoral and illicit when created in 1824;  it has not become moral or legal, simply because it has survived too long.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs was created and has sustained itself, like all other criminal enterprises; upon lies, subterfuge, and greed. It has survived into modern times by continuing to proffer the same fraudulent names, titles, and misnomers it employed in its creation. Terms such as nations; for small tribal communities. Or, sovereignty to describe local governments and communities; where a federal government agency maintains control of their property and affairs. The BIA is surviving by holding U.S. citizens (fellow electors) captive on their own ancestral lands via an unnecessary trust. A trust that should have ended with the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924.

The BIA has abused and plundered these citizens and their ancestors since 1824. The historical record of the BIA is replete with scandalous double dealing and abuse of their trust. A few weeks ago, the true character of the BIA was again confirmed, when they finally agreed to settled a lengthy civil lawsuit with the Tribes. The lawsuit was filed against the government for having mismanaged and mishandled Indian Trust lands for over a century. The cost to the taxpayers is a staggering 3.5 Billion dollars. Proving beyond a shadow of a doubt; that neither, the taxpayers nor the Tribes have need of this immoral criminal enterprise any longer, if in fact we ever did.

It is absurd to claim that these citizens are free to move off the reservation anytime they desire. Sure, they can leave anytime they want; if they don’t mind leaving behind their family and friends. If they don’t mind abandoning the grave sites of their ancestors. Sure they are free to leave but, on the condition that they leave custody of their property, and their tribal lands in the hands of the BIA.

The BIA, throughout its’ sordid history, has committed every despicable crime from genocide, to fraud and theft upon their communities. They can walk away if they are prepared to enter a society that has never invited them to belong, or encouraged them to assimilate. A society that has not only segregated and isolated them throughout history; but seems content to continue doing so into perpetuity.

The first question we should present to anyone attempting to defend the practice of racial and cultural purification of Native American citizens: Where is the authority found for allowing such conduct? Which branch of government has ever had the power or authority to authorize the practice of isolation and segregation by race? What moral theory exist under any civilized society, that would allow such blatantly antisocial and immoral behavior? Where is the law that justifies the continuation of a policy of separate but unequal? Which article of the Constitution sanctions apartheid?

The time has arrived in our history to break the Indian Trust and give the Native American communities fee simple title to their trust lands. Please read the following complaint we prepared for the Arizona State Bar Association. It is simply what has happened to us. Every citizen should find these events very disconcerting. Please help us to end this clearly improper government policy and return the Tribal lands to the Native American Tribes: Follow Up Complaint to AZ State Bar Association

Justice Harold Lee (Retired)

ICGPA Founder and Director