FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE www.indiantrust.com
August 6, 2001


COBELL PLAINTIFFS ASK JUDGE TO SET
DATE FOR TRIAL ON TRUST ACCOUNTING

Interior, Treasury Have "Utterly Failed to Even Begin"
Restatement of Accounts Ordered by Court in 1999


WASHINGTON, D.C. - Charging that unacceptable delay by the secretaries 
of Interior and Treasury is causing irreparable harm to individual 
Indian trust beneficiaries, the Cobell plaintiffs have asked a federal 
judge to set Jan. 8, 2002 for a trial to determine the amount owed by 
the government for more than a century of trust mismanagement.

A court-appointed federal monitor reported last month that the Interior 
and Treasury secretaries have done virtually nothing to comply with a 
December 1999 court ruling ordering them to reform the trust and 
provide an historical accounting of hundreds of millions of dollars 
paid into the trust since the late 19th century.

The government lost its appeal of the 1999 ruling by Judge Royce C. 
Lamberth and let the deadline pass for seeking review by the U.S. 
Supreme Court, the Cobell plaintiffs said in court papers filed Aug. 3.


"Treasury Secretary O'Neill, Interior Secretary Norton and [BIA head 
Neal] McCaleb, accordingly, have no defense and must provide IIM 
beneficiaries with a full accounting of 'all funds,' including without 
limitation all deposits, withdrawals and accruals in accordance with 
trust law and without further delay," the plaintiffs said.

"Failure to set deadlines and dates for defendants means business as 
usual - deception, delay and disobedience. No trial date means that 
defendants O'Neill, Norton and McCaleb will continue to inflict 
irreparable harm on individual Indian trust beneficiaries. No trial 
date means hopelessness and futility. No trial date means defendants 
will continue to do nothing of substance to fulfill their duties."

Testimony and evidence in the class action litigation, Cobell v. Norton, 
have shown that the government has lost or destroyed many of its trust 
records since the trust was established in 1887. Interior and Treasury 
have acknowledged in court that they do not know, and have no way of 
establishing, what became of millions of dollars in trust revenue from 
Indian-owned lands.

The plaintiffs' motion for a trial date, and an accompanying Statement 
of Facts, are posted at www.indiantrust.com

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