ND District Court opens files on TAT bribery case, plea deal sealed during last 4 years

Recent court records in a tribal corruption case reveal how one contractor, Francisco Javier Solis Chacon, spent years bribing at least six employees and elected officials of the Three Affiliated Tribes. The tribe — and some political districts, including tribe-run nonprofit business entities — paid Solis Chacon millions of dollars for inflated construction projects in return for kickbacks.

Solis Chacon was a witness to a Federal Grand Jury that led to federal indictments, convictions and guilty pleas of two former TAT councilmen and one employee. On Nov. 16, the North Dakota District Court unsealed Solis Chacon’s plea agreement and other court records, which had been sealed for the last four years.

Federal agents asked the North Dakota District Court to keep the criminal complaint against Solis Chacon “under seal” in order to protect the government’s investigation into bribery and kickback schemes. “I have not included every fact known to me concerning this investigation,” wrote FBI special agent Jacob O’Connell in a 2018 affidavit.

Solis Chacon pleaded guilty in February 2019 to “corruptly” offering to give “something of value to public officials who were agents of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation.” He is awaiting sentencing. The following events and quotes stem from complaints, FBI affidavits, plea agreement and related court records.

Also known as “Pancho,” Solis Chacon managed three companies, including Pancho’s Concrete, CKP Construction and JC Construction. He used multiple businesses to submit bids to tribal finance, tribal segments and the tribe’s economic development corporations to win projects. In turn, he kicked back money to tribal leaders and their employees. The scheme proved profitable on both sides for years.

Business proceeds allowed Solis Chacon to gamble lavishly. In April 2018, a federal grand jury subpoena was served on MGM Resorts. The investigation showed Solis Chacon spent $3,688,017 on slot machines during a 7-year period. In 2016 and 2017 his “coin in” activity at MGM Resorts totaled $1,297,992 and $1,208,820, respectively, according to the 2018 affidavit.  

One confidential source in the affidavit said they talked to Solis Chacon in a bar in Las Vegas, Nevada during the 2017 Reservation Economic Summit, a conference also attended by numerous individuals representing the MHA Nation. During the conversation, Solis Chacon told the informant he had four of the six members of the Tribal Business Council “on his payroll.”

Solis Chacon told the source that former Three Affiliated Tribes Councilman Frank Grady received his kickback payments by check, “but the other TBC (Tribal Business Council) members were smarter about concealing their payments and were paid through other means.”

The Four Bears Economic Development Corporation, and the Four Bears Segment, are central to the Solis Chacon case. Jolene Lockwood, a former chief of staff of the Four Bears Segment, told federal agents that one Solis Chacon business received about 80 percent of general contracting projects with the Four Bears Segment.

Several employees accommodated his requests to secure contract work. One confidential source in the investigation provided an email chain with Lockwood’s signature: “Although (Solis Chacon) is not a Tier 1 contractor he is a major contributor to all community events and is a great asset to Four Bears and Councilman Grady would like his involvement.”

Solis Chacon bypassed TERO, Tribal Employment Rights Office, regulations that call for Tier 1-Native preference for work done on the Fort Berthold Reservation. In an FBI interview, Canada-based Graham Construction Project manager Spencer Hilde said he was asked by Lockwood to include Solis Chacon’s company for construction on the multimillion-dollar Johnny Bird building.

Hilde said, no. He did not want to work with Solis Chacon. But then an MHA tribal project manager sent Hilde a memo on July 7, 2016. She wrote: “This memo is in reference to Councilman Grady’s request that his preferred contractor, CKP, (F. Javier Solis) be considered to perform the following duties for the Thomas M. (Johnny) Bird Veterans Memorial Hall project.”

On March 8, 2018, yet another confidential source told the FBI they had met at Solis Chacon’s suite at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, along with an MHA Nation tribal housing director – also reported to have received kickbacks and bribes from January 2016 to February 2018 in an amount of at least $101,500 in checks and wire transfers.

Solis Chacon told those present he could get work on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation because he “gave ‘donations’ to the segments and that he had three different businesses registered in North Dakota so he could submit three different bids for the same work,” according to the FBI affidavit.

In one bid, Solis Chacon provided a $40,000 estimate to remodel Tamara Grady’s – Frank Grady’s now ex-wife – home in South Dakota. A Four Bears Segment employee “later told Tamara that Solis Chacon invoiced “$150,000 for remodeling, which Grady billed to the MHA Nation,” according to the Solis Chacon plea agreement.

Solis Chacon paid Grady at least $194,000 in bribes and kickbacks from July 2016 to September 2017. The defendant also communicated with Grady’s girlfriend and chief of staff about bribes and kickbacks. “At least two of the of the payments to F.G. were deposited into an account controlled jointly by F.G and R.P.” according to Solis Chacon’s plea deal.

In his guilty plea, Solis Chacon acknowledged more kickbacks. During a near one-year period, 2016-2017, Solis Chacon “paid at least $240,000 in kickbacks to J.L., who was an employee in the Four Bears Segment office.”

On Sept. 12, three auditors from Wipfli CPAs and Consultants, met with FBI and Department of Interior, Office of Inspector General officials. “The auditors advised that their firm had been hired by the MHA Nation to conduct a review of several of the (Three Affiliated Tribes) programs, including the (Four Bears Segment),” according to the 2019 FBI affidavit. “The auditors claimed that Grady and (Ramona) Pond had been uncooperative with their audit.”

In addition, from March 2014 to December 2018, the defendant “paid bribes and kickbacks to R.P., who is the elected representative on the (Tribal Business Council) for the West Segment, at least $202,800,” which was paid via cash around April 2018 to December 2018.

Finally, the Solis Chacon plea deal acknowledges from 2012 to 2018, “bribes and kickbacks via cash and check to D.R. who is an employee of the West Segment, at least $60,000,” paid by check from July 2017 to December 2018.

In the criminal complaint against Grady, it’s noted that funding requests, budget approval, legislative matters and special projects all fall under the purview of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation’s Tribal Business Council.  The council – which holds all executive and legislative powers, and influences the judicial branch — allocates an annual multimillion-dollar pot of money to each political segment.

“Many segments, including the Four Bears Segment, deposit this allocation into the segment’s economic development corporation account. Expenditures from a segment’s allocation are not subject to (Tribal Business Council) oversight, and the TBC representative has significant discretion as to the spending of the segment’s allocation.”

Solis Chacon knew how to navigate the Three Affiliated Tribes contract system. He is among hundreds of small businesses and oil corporations doing business with the Three Affiliated Tribes, six political, geographic segments and economic development corporations in each segment.

The defendant, who is a naturalized citizen of the United States, was granted travel to Guadalajara, Mexico from Nov. 1 to Dec. 13 “for business purposes.” He is scheduled to be sentenced in North Dakota on Dec. 20.

In the 2018 affidavit, he told an FBI agent that “working on the (Fort Berthold Indian Reservation) was like being in Mexico, if you knew the right people, you could do whatever you wanted.”

Sourcing & Methodology Statement:

This story was developed in response to the lack of transparency from the Three Affiliated Tribes (TAT) Tribal Business Council. The Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation, or TAT, has no freedom of information laws unlike the federal government and all 50 state governments. Federal court records are often the only way to fully report on criminal activities of elected tribal officials or their employees.

References:

USA v. Francisco Javier Solis Chacon, Plea Agreement Under Seal, US District Court of North Dakota, Feb. 11, 2019,https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23319010-chacon-plea-agreement?responsive=1&title=1

USA v. Francisco Javier Solis Chacon, Complaint and Affidavit, Nov. 28, 2018, https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23318995-chacon-complaint-and-affidavit?responsive=1&title=1

Frank Grady complaint: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23318997-frank_grady_complaint?responsive=1&title=1

USA v. Jolene Lockwood, District Court of North Dakota, Feb. 20, 2019, https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23319016-jolene-lockwood-under-seal?responsive=1&title=1

USA v. Jolene Lockwood, Plea Agreement Under Seal, US District Court of North Dakota, Jan. 2019, https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23319017-jolene-lockwood-plea-agreement?responsive=1&title=1

Dateline:

BISMARCK, N.D.