Former Wampanoag leader sentenced
Marshall faces jail for embezzlement, illegal payments
Glenn A. Marshall, the former Mashpee Wampanoag tribal chairman, was sentenced yesterday to nearly three and a half years in federal prison for embezzling about $380,000 in tribal money and steering about $60,000 in illegal campaign contributions to politicians with the help of convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
US District Court Judge Rya W. Zobel said that Marshall, who helped the tribe gain federal recognition in February 2007 as part of plan to build a casino, had been motivated to do good for the tribe. But he "was ultimately corrupted" and deserved the sentence of 41 months prosecutors had urged, Zobel said.
Standing before the judge, the tall, 59-year-old Marshall said he helped members of the tribe by giving them money and that he was ignorant of campaign finance laws. Nonetheless, he said, he knew he did wrong.
"I apologize to my people, my family, my friends, and the court," he said in a packed courtroom.
Spectators included several tribe members who said they tried to blow the whistle on him and were temporarily kicked out of the tribe.
Marshall's lawyer, Paul F. Markham of Melrose, had urged Zobel to sentence his client to less than a year in prison. He said Marshall was a pawn of Washington lobbyists who offered help in winning federal recognition and was a victim of intense media coverage of proposals to build a casino on Cape Cod.
"He was swallowed up by this group of experts in this gambling casino milieu," he said.
But Assistant US Attorney Jonathan F. Mitchell denied that Marshall was naïve and said he violated the trust his tribe placed in him.
"This was, in effect, a white-collar crime scheme perpetrated by someone in a prominent public position," Mitchell said. "He was, in fact, the CEO of the tribe."
Marshall pleaded guilty on Feb. 11 to making illegal campaign contributions to members of Congress on behalf of the tribe, embezzling from the tribe, filing false tax returns for himself and the tribe, and fraudulently receiving Social Security disability benefits. He is to report to federal prison on June 8.
Marshall was accused of converting a fund intended to promote the tribe's traditional fishing rights into a political and personal slush fund. The fund, called the Mashpee Fisherman's Association account, received $4 million from outside investors in the tribe's casino plans between 2003 and 2007. The tribe has been trying to build the state's first casino for $1 billion on 539 acres in Middleborough.
Prosecutors said Marshall hired Abramoff as an adviser and tapped the fund to steer about $60,000 in illegal campaign contributions to members of Congress and other officials in an effort to advance the tribe's recognition petition and promote its casino plan.
He allegedly used a series of family members and tribal officials to act as straw contributors to get around laws that prohibit corporations or tribes from making campaign contributions, according to the government's sentencing memorandum. None of the recipients has been implicated in the fraud.
Marshall also used the fund as his personal piggy bank, prosecutors said, spending about $380,000 on groceries, vacation trips, tuition payments for his daughter, restaurant tabs, home repairs, mortgage payments, and jewelry.
Stephanie Tobey Roderick, a tribe member who attended the sentencing hearing, said she worked in the tribal health office and began questioning financial irregularities soon after Marshall became chairman in 2000.
She and three other tribe members filed a suit in Barnstable Superior Court seeking access to financial records. In retaliation, she said, Marshall and other tribal leaders shunned her, the equivalent of kicking her out of the tribe. The tribe rescinded the order this year, she said.
"We were right in what we were trying to let the tribe know about - him stealing from us," Roderick, 47, said after the hearing. "It was a fact, and he's going to go to jail about it."
As tribal chairman, Marshall was a familiar figure on Beacon Hill. But he resigned in August 2007 after acknowledging a 1981 rape conviction and lying to Congress about his military record.
Prosecutors say he hired a political consultant in 2002 who referred him to Abramoff.
Saltzman can be reached at jsaltzman@globe.com 