The Cowlitz Indian Tribe is handing over thousands of pages of documents to the U.S. Department of Justice as part of a preliminary probe into potential violations of federal antitrust laws.
An attorney for the tribe briefed its governing Tribal Council on Dec. 2 about the records sought by the justice department earlier this month, according to documentation of that meeting obtained by The Oregonian/OregonLive. A person who participated in the meeting confirmed the topics discussed but spoke under the condition they not be named because they aren’t authorized to speak on behalf of the tribe and fear retaliation.
The meeting documentation indicates that the probe is focused on the tribe’s efforts to protect its highly successful ilani Resort Casino from competitors.
Ilani, located outside of La Center, Washington, has rapidly become one of the most successful tribal casinos in the Northwest due to its proximity to Portland, and the tribe has gone to great efforts to protect that success. As The Oregonian/OregonLive reported earlier this month, the Cowlitz tribe has for much of the last five years been paying a duo of Oregon gaming promoters $30,000 to $50,000 a month in part to defend against the opening of any competing casinos in the Portland market.
It’s difficult to determine just how dire, or not, the tribe’s position is. It’s not entirely clear who is the target of the inquiry. The meeting records indicate the tribe is eager to cooperate with prosecutors.
Tribal leaders have agreed to hand over emails from the late David Barnett, the Cowlitz tribe’s powerful and controversial former chair who played a key role in assembling the tribe’s reservation land and opening its casino, according to the meeting records. The tribe is also providing the justice department with detailed financial and market share data for the casino.
Tribal leaders have been meeting once a week with justice department officials to help collect needed information.
The Cowlitz Tribal Council was first informed of a potential antitrust issue earlier this fall, according to a former tribal official and the person who participated in the December meeting.
Antitrust law prohibits an attempt among business competitors to fix prices or divvy up a market. It also bars big players in a market from using their clout to monopolize the sector. Violating these laws can result in big monetary fines and prison time.
The person who participated in the discussions said some of the Cowlitz leaders believe their good-faith cooperation will help the tribe.
Cowlitz leaders declined interview requests. Officials from the justice department’s antitrust division did not return phone calls.
The tribe faces this uncertain moment without Barnett, the aggressive and controversial tribal leader who has dominated Cowlitz tribal politics for much of the last decade. He died suddenly in May.
The 5,000-member Cowlitz tribe won federal recognition in 2002, and the federal government took its reservation into trust in 2015, clearing the way for construction of the ilani Casino Resort.
As The Oregonian/OregonLive reported this month, the tribe soon after began paying consultants Matthew Rossman and Bruce Studer — and at times their business entity, R&S Strategy Group — to protect the casino from competition, including from tribes in Oregon that might try to capture a piece of the Portland market.
Rossman and Studer are best known for their efforts to build a non-tribal casino near Portland, plans that hinged on a series of failed ballot initiatives to change state law to end tribes’ exclusive rights to operate casinos.
Some tribal officials were skeptical about what value the tribe would get from hiring the consultants, because there seemed little threat of upstart competition.
Under current state rules, tribes in Oregon can each operate a single casino, which must be located on their respective reservations. That effectively locks tribes in Oregon out of the Portland market. The nearest to Portland is the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, whose Spirit Mountain Casino is about 60 miles to the southwest.
And just like Kate Brown before her, incoming Gov. Tina Kotek has said publicly that she has little interest in allowing expansion of tribal gaming. Without the governor’s sign-off, those plans are non-starters.
But some Oregon tribes are challenging the current one-casino-per-tribe policy.
The Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians, based in Lincoln County, are pushing ahead with their plan for a new casino on property north of Salem near Interstate 5. The Siletz currently own and operate the Chinook Winds Casino Resort in Lincoln City.
The Siletz proposal led to a surprise warming of a historically frosty relationship between the Cowlitz and Grand Ronde tribes. Grand Ronde had opposed the ilani casino, and after it was built, Spirit Mountain’s revenue dropped by 20%.
Barnett and Cowlitz attorney Kent Caputo met with Grand Ronde Chair Cheryle Kennedy last spring. Barnett’s account of the meeting was included in written minutes from a May 2022 meeting of the Cowlitz tribal council.
Barnett described a meeting that went “extremely well,” according to the minutes. The proposed Siletz casino in Salem, which Grand Ronde opposes, was among the agenda items. If the Siletz succeed in “leap frogging” the Grand Ronde and expanding in Salem, that would be bad news for Grand Ronde, Barnett reported to the council.
A month later, Cowlitz and Grand Ronde officials traveled to Washington, D.C., for a lobbying trip. Grand Ronde officials confirm they and their Cowlitz counterparts met with staffers from the office of Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash.
Last month, Grand Ronde informed Wood Village officials that the tribe is moving ahead with plans to build a second casino in the tiny city in eastern Multnomah County.
Wood Village was also the site where Rossman and Studer had sought to build their own casino. After they began working with the Cowlitz tribe, their contract gave the Cowlitza right of first refusal to operate any casino they managed to build.
Cowlitz leaders terminated the controversial contract in October. Rossman and Studer declined to comment for this story.
“The tribe has a duty to review and evaluate its contracts when issues are raised,” the tribe said in a statement in early November. “Following that review, a decision was made to end the contractual agreement with R&S.”
Rossman and Studer, meanwhile, have filed a claim in Barnett’s probate case pending in King County in Washington state, saying they are owed $1.3 million for their work on the tribe’s behalf. They claim in the legal filing Barnett personally guaranteed payment of the money promised by the tribe.
