PROVIDENCE – No jail time was ordered at the sentencing yesterday of the three Narragansett Indian Tribe members convicted on charges related to the smoke-shop raid five years ago, according to R.I. Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch.
Superior Court Judge Susan E. McGuirl filed the case against Chief Sachem Matthew Thomas – convicted in April of one count of simple assault in the tribe’s July 13, 2003, scuffle with R.I. State Police (READ MORE) – and ordered him to complete 150 hours of community service. Thomas will spend the time speaking in Rhode Island schools about the history of the tribe.
The judge also filed the case against Randy Noka, who was convicted in April of disorderly conduct. She ordered him to complete 25 hours of community service.
But Judge McGuirl imposed a one-year suspended sentence, with probation, on Hiawatha Brown, who was convicted in April of both disorderly conduct and assault, and ordered him to undergo anger-management counseling.
The charges – each of which carried a maximum penalty of one year in prison – stemmed from the defendants’ alleged roles in scuffles that broke out on July 13, 2003, when the R.I. State Police shut down the smoke shop. About 50 officers took part in the raid, including riot-control forces and members of a special weapons squad.
The Narragansetts – who had opened the shop two days earlier, on tribal land in Charlestown – had been selling cigarettes there without charging the state sales tax. That action was illegal, Lynch and other officials contend.
The tribe and its lawyers continue to disagree. “It was essentially an invasion upon their land,” defense lawyer William Devereaux told McGuirl during a sentencing hearing, according to the Associated Press.
Thomas told reporters outside the courthouse yesterday that he regretted the fight, but that the Narragansetts had not been looking for one, the AP reported. “The tribe’s got to have some kind of understanding with the state,” the chief sachem said. “We were the original people here. People need to respect that, whether they like it or not.”
Lynch’s response – issued early yesterday evening, as he took a break from the National Association of Attorneys General’s 2008 Summer Meeting, a four-day gathering at The Westin Providence that began Tuesday and wraps up today, before being installed as the NAAG’s president during a banquet last night at Rosecliff in Newport – was mixed.
“First, I don’t think we could have gone to greater lengths to ensure that the defendants were treated the same way as anybody else who was being prosecuted on the same charges,” the attorney general said in a statement yesterday afternoon.
“Second, I don’t think that today’s sentencing negates the fact that a jury convicted these three defendants of crimes committed against state troopers who had the legal authority to execute a search warrant of an illegal business,” said Lynch.
“Third, as much as I question the appropriateness of the community-service component of Chief Sachem Thomas’ sentence – this case is over, and it’s finality is good [for] our state.”
The Narragansett Indian Tribe of Rhode Island – the namesake of the Town of Narragansett – has its administrative offices in Charlestown and its Nuweetooun School and Tomaquag Indian Memorial Museum in Exeter. Additional information is available at www.Narragansett-Tribe.org.
For news and information from the R.I. Office of the Attorney General, visit www.riag.ri.gov.
