Texas Tribe Sues Abramoff, ReedIt’s still unclear whether Ralph Reed has anything to fear from Justice Department prosecutors, but he’s not going to get away without at least one legal headache.
Jack Abramoff hired Reed to squash any competition to his casino owning tribal clients. Now one of those tribes wants to get even. So they’re suing him, along with Abramoff and other members of his team, for “fraud and racketeering.”
The basis of the tribe’s suit against Reed seems mainly to be that he’s a hypocrite. I’m not sure what chance they have of winning, but I do anticipate the prospect of Ralph Reed being forced to explain under oath that, even though he was being paid by a rival casino, the work was really motivated out of Christian virtue. That would be a fun cross-examination to watch.
From the AP:
The tribe, which says it has strong Christian values, alleges Reed’s group called state legislators, sent targeted mailings to voters and ran radio ads against the bill without revealing their true origins, preventing the tribe from fighting back.Reed’s work made the opposition to the tribe’s casino appear to be based on Christian concerns, not competitive concerns from its sister tribe, the Alabama-Coushatta said.
Had the public or tribe known the Louisiana Coushatta tribe was the main opponent, Christian groups would have been “less mobilized.” Because the Texas and Louisiana tribes share family ties, Louisiana Coushatta members would have opposed the attack on their sister tribe, the Alabama-Coushatta said.