Quapaw ex-official charged in embezzlement case
John L. Berrey, former chairman of the Quapaw Business Committee, who is credited with building Saracen Casino in Pine Bluff and shepherding the amendment authorizing casino gambling in Arkansas through the ballot process, was accused Friday in the Court of the Quapaw Nation in Miami, Okla., of abusing his office and embezzling more than $7 million in tribal funds to pay for personal expenses, to fund bonuses and to purchase gifts for tribal officials and employees.
Indicted along with Berrey was Tamara Smiley-Reeves, former secretary-treasurer of the committee.
Berrey was named in an 11-count criminal complaint filed by Special Prosecutor Douglas Dry of Wilburton, Okla., on behalf of the Quapaw Tribe of Oklahoma. Reeves was named in a seven-count complaint.
The two were ordered to appear in Quapaw Tribal Court on May 6 before Judge A. Diane Hammons for a hearing. Each charge carries a maximum penalty of three years in prison and a $15,000
fine, and some carry penalties of temporary suspension of tribal benefits and temporary or permanent banishment from Quapaw Indian Country.
Berrey denied the accusations: “We haven’t done anything wrong,” he said.
Berrey and Reeves were also named, along with seven other tribal members and former employees, in a civil lawsuit filed in the same court seeking damages of $7 million along with unspecified punitive damages, costs and fees. Dry is named as the attorney for the plaintiffs: Quapaw Nation ex rel., the Downstream Development Authority and Saracen Development LLC.
Berrey, who served as chairman for 20 years, oversaw the construction of Downstream Development Casino in Quapaw, Okla., which opened in 2008, and of Saracen Casino Resort and the Q-Store Annex in Pine Bluff. Saracen Casino opened last October. The Q-Store Annex, with 200 slot machines, opened in October 2019.
During Berrey’s tenure, Quapaw business interests expanded to encompass casino gambling, a cattle ranch and processing plant, a coffee roaster, a bison herd, wetlands restoration and more.
He lobbied for the passage of Arkansas’ Amendment 100, which authorized the construction and operation of four casinos in the state: at Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, Southland Greyhound Park in West Memphis, in Pope County and in Jefferson County.
In an election last summer, Berrey was ousted as Business Committee chairman by Joseph Tali Byrd, and Reeves was defeated as secretary-treasurer by Guy Barker.
A news release from the Quapaw Nation said the civil complaint accuses Berrey, Reeves and the seven other defendants of fraud, conversion and unjust enrichment, and alleged that casino money was diverted for personal use to pay for private air travel, tickets to professional football games, Arkansas Razorback events, meals, alcohol and other perks.
An affidavit filed by Michael Crump, president and owner of Innovative Gaming Solutions, a casino industry consulting company, said his company was contacted by the Quapaw Nation Gaming Authority to perform an internal audit in June 2020, but because of resistance encountered in trying to review documents, the audit was put off until after the July 25 election of tribal officers.
Crump said in the affidavit that allegations of improper bonuses being paid to Berrey, Reeves and Merlin Jones, the chief financial officer of the casinos, were leveled by a former tribal official, Larry Ramsey, in a letter posted to the tribe’s Facebook page shortly before the election.
Crump said a payroll investigation showed that between December 2019 and May 2020, Berrey was paid a $1.5 million bonus in six installments of $250,000, and Jones received a bonus of $1 million paid out in six installments of $166,666. Crump also said that Berrey received more than $1.6 million from Saracen during that same period and that both he and Reeves received numerous unauthorized pay increases between 2010 and 2020, among other allegations.
Contacted by phone Monday night, Berrey, who has announced plans to run for vice chairman of the Quapaw Business Committee in July, said the allegations stemmed from tribal infighting and that none of what he has been accused of is true.
“Everything was approved,” Berrey said, “it’s just a political vendetta.”
Berrey said the filing in tribal court will give him the opportunity to prove his innocence and to cast attention on what he said is mismanagement by the current tribal leadership.
“No one is talking about how they’re failing at Saracen in Pine Bluff,” he said. “Nobody’s talking about how they don’t communicate with the leadership in Pine Bluff or Jefferson County. It’s just smoke and mirrors.”
Berrey said initiatives begun under his leadership at Saracen Casino, including the use of off-duty law enforcement for security, a dog program and metal detectors were taken out of the budget after his defeat as chairman.
“They took all of that out,” he said. “There’s no way you can make that the jewel of southeast Arkansas if you don’t make people feel safe. They’re letting down the whole community … They’re making the tribe look horrible and they’re blaming me.”
Berrey said the abuses he is accused of could not have happened without the consent of the seven-member Quapaw Business Committee and, given the seriousness of the charges, he questioned why the tribal court was chosen as the venue.
“Why is this in a court of such small jurisdiction?” he asked. “Why isn’t this in federal court? Why isn’t the U.S. attorney involved?”
Barker said because the issue is a tribal matter, the Quapaw Tribal Court is the proper jurisdiction.
“Tribal governments themselves are kind of viewed as sovereign entities, very similar to like a state,” he said. “So, like the way that Arkansas has their district courts, county courts that handle civil and criminal matters, tribes are viewed in the exact same way, so this is similar to having a state-level proceeding.”
Barker said any tribal members convicted of criminal acts who receive prison time are confined in Craig County Prison in Vinita, Okla.
He denied Berrey’s contention that the matter is political.
“We have prosecutors who are completely independent,” he said. “They decide whether to move forward on things like this.”
He said Berrey and Reeves, as the longest-serving members of the committee, held an inordinate amount of sway.
“They only had to have two political allies in there in order to control the committee,” he said, “which they pretty much had during the entire lifespan of their political career.”
Barker maintained that control enabled Berrey and Reeves to head off any serious examination of tribal finances.
“They just kind of snuffed it out and kept on going,” he said. “Requests for this kind of information have been ongoing for at least a decade, but they never complied with the actual requests. It got to the point where they had to be dethroned for anyone to actually get in there and take a look.”
Jefferson County Judge Gerald Robinson expressed shock and dismay at the news of the charges.
“Anytime we asked Chairman Berrey for anything, he said he had to take it up with the [committee],” Robinson said. “He was always straightforward, very conscious of the law, very aboveboard. He said all the i’s had to be dotted and all the t’s had to be crossed. I find all of this kind of hard to believe.”