Almost $950 M in
Cobell Trust Administration Class Payments Have Been Mailed
9/18/14
The check is in the mail, is the latest
expression in regards to theCobellsettlement
funds to class members and for some it’s already been cashed.
On September 15, the Garden City Group,
Inc. and Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton, made the announcement that the
first checks were finally mailed out to the Trust Administration Class in theCobellIndian Trust Settlement according to a press
release from Garden City.
The
Department of the Interior released the data to Garden City, the firm
court-appointed to administer the settlement, on August 30. Then on September
11, “the United States District Court for the District of Columbia entered an
Order approving plaintiffs’ unopposed motion to begin distribution of nearly
$950 million.”
The
order was the final step to commence payment to the second round of class
members.
Senator
John Walsh (D-MT), who in April conveyed a deep concern about the ongoing
delays in payments released a statement on September 18, “Although still
decades too late, the recent Cobell Settlement payments marks a step in the
right direction to right a wrong. I will continue to fight to ensure the
federal government adequately meets the trust obligations we owe our tribal
nations. Today, we all should be grateful for the leadership of fellow Montanan
Elouise Cobell.”
The $3.4 billion settlement includes
copy.5 billion split in two classes for hundreds of thousands of beneficiaries
according to theRapid City
Journal. The first class payments of copy,000 began being
mailed to beneficiaries in December 2012 with the second round of payments
originally aimed to be mailed out in the fall of 2013 as reported by ICTMN in
March of 2013.
“Garden
City is sending checks to Trust Administration Class Members where we have a
current address,” said Jennifer Keough, Chief Operating Officer, Garden City.
“Checks may take five to seven days to reach Class Members once they have been
mailed.”
For some, checks are already being
received, as theBillings Gazettehasreportedchecks of at least $800 have reached the Crow
Agency as of Wednesday.
The
largest class action settlement against the federal government to date has seen
many delays in the check mailing process since it was settled in 2010. Part of
the delay was due to decades of neglect by the Department of the Interior when
it came to the records of class members – 500,000 individual Indian
beneficiaries throughout Indian country. Counsel for the Plaintiffs, Bill
Dorris and David Smith of Kilpatrick Townsend, and Garden City were given the
task of distributing payments.
“There
were insufficient or absolutely no addresses for over 315,000 class members,
22,000 individuals Interior listed as alive were deceased, over 1,200 Interior
listed as deceased we found were still alive, and there were thousands of whom
Interior had no record at all. But it was important that Elouise Cobell’s
legacy be fulfilled and that class members receive the money to which they were
entitled under the Settlement. By working closely with tribes, associations,
and individual Indians across the country we were able, in just over a year and
a half, to fix trust records that had not been adequately addressed by the
federal government for generations.”
For more information, please visitwww.indiantrust.com.
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