Wampanoag leader criticizes infighting

December 21, 2008

The chairman of the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe says infighting and media coverage are hurting the tribe’s bid for an Indian casino. The comments by Shawn Hendricks in a Dec. 16 letter to tribe members were his first since former tribal chairman Glenn Marshall admitted to fraud and corruption charges earlier in the week. Hendricks said the tribe is being hurt by circumstances beyond its control and instigated by tribe members "who have a lot of personal grudges." He also criticized tribe members who he said have ignored legal advice and spoken out about Marshall. He said that only implicates the tribe in something it didn’t do and hurts its plans to build a casino in Middleborough. Hendricks said the tribe cannot have its own members undermining it "at the finish line." (AP)

A Navy SEAL from New Hampshire who was killed in Iraq this year has won a high tribute. Nate Hardy was chosen for the George Van Cleave Military Leadership Award, a prestigious honor awarded by the USO to one member of each branch of the military every year. Stephen and Donna Hardy traveled to New York City last Monday to accept the award for their son, who was killed in action in Iraq in February. Stephen Hardy said that they were thrilled and honored to receive the award on his behalf, but that the event also stirred up some difficult feelings. "It was very emotionally charged and emotionally draining," he said, "but we wouldn't have wanted to miss it." (AP)

The Coast Guard rescued four people from rough seas off Rhode Island after their sailboat was damaged and left adrift in a winter storm. The crew of the 45-foot boat, Moonshine, left from East Greenwich on Friday, headed for Puerto Rico. But the boat got caught in the storm, which ripped its sails and left it disabled off Block Island. A Coast Guard helicopter and lifeboat arrived early yesterday at the last position indicated by the boat's emergency beacon, but it had been carried away by 40-knot winds, and visibility was less than a mile. The Moonshine was located after its crew shot off a flare. (AP)

A 16-year-old has died at his home in Millinocket, the apparent victim of exhaust fumes from the family’s plow truck. Lieutenant Robert Young of the Piscataquis County Sheriff’s Department said the parents of Matthew Cesare found their son’s body at about 11 a.m. Thursday. The teen was a student at the Maine School of Science and Mathematics in Limestone and was home for Christmas break. Young said Cesare had been trying to warm up an older plow truck in a small garage when he apparently fell ill from the truck’s fumes. (AP)

A 26-year-old Pownal man has been jailed on a felony domestic assault charge after he shoved a woman and an infant she was holding into a Christmas tree, police said. Bobby Joe Pratt was charged with second-degree aggravated domestic assault in the Dec. 14 incident. It occurred two months after an Oct. 13 episode in which he assaulted the same woman, police said. Pratt had reached a plea agreement in November with Bennington County prosecutors in which he got a deferred two-year sentence in the October incident and in which his record was to be wiped clean if he had no further brushes with the law before November 2010. He could face 16 years if convicted of the charges facing him. (AP)

Governor Jim Douglas is sticking by his opposition to raising taxes in Vermont after a series of hearings in which lawmakers took testimony from people saying they would be severely hurt by budget cuts. "Economists are quite clear: Raising taxes in a recession will make it longer and deeper, so we have to do everything we can to meet the needs of Vermonters without taking more from their hard-earned paychecks," Douglas said. The comment was made in response to a call by at least one leading Democrat to consider raising taxes as part of a blend of efforts to deal with growing state revenue shortfalls. (AP)