Former MLPA science co-chair sentenced to 10 months in federal prison
May 23, 2014 Dan Bacher Leave a comment
Biologist and co-conspirator embezzled +$852,000 from Yurok Tribe
Originally Published in the Daily KOS and Indybay.com
By Dan Bacher
A federal judge in San Francisco on May 20 sentenced Ron Valley of
Mad River Biologists, the former co-chair of the Marine Life Protection
Act (MLPA) Initiative Science Advisory Team for the North Coast, to
serve 10 months in federal prison for his role in a conspiracy to
embezzle over $852,000 in federal funds from the Yurok Tribe.
In February, LeValley pleaded guilty to a single federal charge of
conspiracy to commit embezzlement and theft from an Indian Tribal
Organization (18U.S.C §§ 371 and 1163) in the complex scheme in
collaboration with former Yurok Forestry Director Roland Raymond.
According to court documents, LeValley submitted more than 75 false
invoices between 2007 and 2010 in payment for “work” on northern spotted
owl surveys that was never performed.
Raymond would write checks from the Tribe and LeValley would then
funnel the money back to him, less 20 percent. For details on the
complex embezzlement scheme, go to my article:
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/10...45508.php.
The link to the indictment is available at:
http://noyonews.net/wp-content/uploads/2..._Filed.pdf
U.S. District
Court Judge William Alsup
also sentenced LeValley to three years supervised release, along with
ordering LeValley to perform 100 hours of community service and to give
talks about his crime to 200 people.
In addition, the judge ordered LeValley and Raymond to jointly repay
the $852,000 they embezzled from the tribe as restitution to the victims
of their crimes.
The sentencing statement submitted to the judge by the U.S.
Attorney’s Office recommended a one-year prison sentence, citing
LeValley’s cooperation in the case:
“The applicable guidelines range for LeValley is twenty-four to
thirty months’ imprisonment. Like Raymond, LeValley proffered,
cooperated, and substantially assisted and expedited the government’s
prosecution of the Yurok Tribe cases. Unlike Raymond, LeValley’s
post-charging conduct consistently has demonstrated acceptance of
responsibility, candor, and a commitment to correcting course.
From the low end of the guidelines range, the government moves for a
twelve-month downward departure pursuant to U.S.S.G. § 5K1.1 and
recommends imprisonment for twelve months and one day. The government
also recommends that the Court order LeValley jointly and severally
liable for $852,000 in restitution.”
While acknowledging LeValley’s cooperation on the charges, the U.S.
Attorney noted, “he has not suffered meaningful injury or incurred
danger or risk of injury through his cooperation. If anything,
cooperating has helped repair his damaged reputation. Still, LeValley’s
assistance was timely and useful from the government’s perspective.”
On the other hand, LeValley’s attorney, William H. Kimball,
recommended “a non-custodial sentence of home confinement and rigorous
community service,” after citing his “personal history and
characteristics” in the defendant’s sentencing memorandum:
“The criminal conduct in this case is, by all accounts, a complete
aberration in the life of Ron LeValley — a man whose ‘personal history
and characteristics’ are not only strikingly at odds with the events in
this case but also dramatically different from those routinely presented
for sentencing in white collar cases. Ron LeValley’s life has been
defined both by his concern for others and for the environment of
Northern California. Unfortunately, by foolishly and naively agreeing to
participate in a criminal conspiracy that he believed was intended
actually to help members of the Yurok Tribe, Ron in fact hurt the tribe
and its members deeply.”
LeValley’s co-conspirator, Roland Raymond, was sentenced to three years in prison in January.
After the sentencing,
Thomas O’Rourke,
Chair of the York Tribe, told the North Coast Journal that he was very
disappointed with the sentence, describing it as a slap on the wrist.
“He’s considered a leader in the community, and pillars of the
community are held to higher standards,” O’Rourke said. “In my mind, and
in the tribe’s mind, he’s a crook. And, basically, he was slapped on
the wrist with the sentence.”
“O’Rourke said LeValley has never taken full responsibility for his
actions, or showed remorse for the damage he’s done to the Yurok Tribe,”
according to the Journal.
“He said he was duped, that he was tricked,” O’Rourke told the
publication. “He’s an intelligent man, a business man, and he didn’t get
this far in life being tricked … The Yurok Tribe is very disappointed
in the sentence, and in the system.”
Validity of MLPA Initiative ‘Science’ Challenged
Many North Coast residents believe Levalley’s sentence to federal
prison on federal embezzlement charges calls into question the
legitimacy of the “science” employed by the controversial Marine Life
Protection Act (MLPA) Initiate Science Advisory Team that he co-chaired.
This “science” was used to close vast areas of the North Coast to
fishing and tribal gathering under the MLPA Initiative – while doing
nothing to stop pollution, fracking, oil drilling, wind and wave energy
projects, military testing and all human impacts on the ocean other than
fishing and gathering.
“I would like to know how the state of California is going to revise
the science advice LeValley provided for the North Coast MLPA Initiative
process, based on him filing false documents,” said Jim Martin, West
Coast Regional Director of the Recreational Fishing Alliance (RFA), when
the federal charges were filed against LeValley in October 2013.
He suggested forming a “truth and reconciliation commission” to unravel “what really happened” in the MLPA Initiative.
The validity of the science employed by the MLPA Initiative Science
Advisory Team under LeValley’s leadership becomes even more suspect when
one considers that LeValley and the Team repeatedly and inexplicably
refused to allow the Yurok Tribe to present their scientific studies
regarding “marine protected areas.”
The Tribe exposed the
questionable science of
the MLPA Initiative in a statement on June 6, 2012 that questioned the
“protection” provided in the so-called “marine protected areas, showing
how two species, Pacific eulachon and mussels would be “summarily
mismanaged.”
“Under the MLPA each marine species is assigned a certain level of
protection,” according to the Tribe. “Species like mussels are given a
low level of protection, which in MLPA-speak, translates to more
regulation.
“To date, there has been no scientific data submitted suggesting that
mussels on the North Coast are in any sort of danger or are
overharvested. In fact, it’s just the opposite. The readily available
quantitative survey data collected over decades by North Coast experts
shows there is quite an abundance of mussels in this sparsely populated
study region,” the Tribe continued.
“Fish like Pacific eulachon, also known as candle fish, are given a
high level of protection, or in other words, their harvest is not
limited by the proposed regulations. Eulachon are near extinction and
listed as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act,” the
Tribe stated.
“Both of these marine species are essential and critical to the
cultural survival of northern California tribes,” said Thomas O’Rourke,
Chairman of the Yurok Tribe. “However, under the proposed regulations
they would be summarily mismanaged. It’s examples like these that compel
our concerns.”
The Tribe said it attempted on numerous occasions to address the
scientific inadequacies with the MLPA science developed under the
Schwarzenegger administration by adding “more robust protocols” into the
equation, but was denied every time.
For example, the MLPA Science Advisory Team Co-Chaired by LeValley in
August 2010 turned down a request by the Tribe to make a presentation
to the panel. Among other data, the Tribe was going to present data of
test results from other marine reserves regarding mussels
The Northern California Tribal Chairman’s Association, including the
Chairs of the Elk Valley Rancheria, Hoopa Valley Tribe, Karuk Tribe,
Smith River Rancheria, Trinidad Rancheria, and Yurok Tribe, documented
in a
letter
how the science behind the MLPA Initiative developed by
Schwarzenegger’s Science Advisory Team is “incomplete and terminally
flawed.”
On the day of the historic direct action protest by a coalition of over 50 Tribes and their allies in Fort Bragg in July 2010,
Frankie Joe Myers,
Yurok Tribal member and Coastal Justice Coalition activist, exposed the
refusal to incorporate Tribal science that underlies the “science” of
the MLPA process.
“The whole process is inherently flawed by institutionalized racism,”
said Myers. “It doesn’t recognize Tribes as political entities, or
Tribal biologists as legitimate scientists.”
The no-take state marine reserves created under LeValley’s leadership
currently prohibit tribal gathering and fishing at Redding Rock, the
False Klamath and other traditional tribal gathering areas on the North
Coast, in spite of numerous requests by the Yurok and other North Coast
Tribes to protect tribal gathering rights.
Wouldn’t it have been prudent for the Natural Resources Agency and
Department of Fish and Wildlife to have postponed the implementation of
the alleged North Coast “marine protected areas” until this case had
been resolved in the courts – and when the legitimacy of the “science”
of the MLPA Initiative was already facing severe criticism from
respected Tribal scientists?
MLPA Initiative Background:
The Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) is a law, signed by Governor
Gray Davis in 1999, designed to create a network of marine protected
areas off the California Coast. However, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
in 2004 created the privately-funded MLPA “Initiative” to “implement”
the law, effectively eviscerating the MLPA.
The “marine protected areas” created under the MLPA Initiative fail
to protect the ocean from oil spills and drilling, water pollution,
military testing, seismic testing, wave and wind energy projects,
corporate aquaculture and all other uses of the ocean other than fishing
and gathering.
The MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Forces that oversaw the implementation of
“marine protected areas” included a big oil lobbyist, marina developer,
real estate executive and other individuals with numerous conflicts of
interest. Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the president of the Western States
Petroleum Association, chaired the South Coast MLPA Blue Ribbon Task
that developed the MPAs that went into effect in Southern California
waters on January 1, 2012.
Reheis-Boyd, a relentless advocate for the expansion of fracking in
California, the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline and the
weakening of environmental laws, also served on the MLPA Blue Ribbon
Task Force for the North Coast and North Central Coast.
The MLPA Initiative operated through a controversial private/public
partnership funded by the shadowy Resources Legacy Fund Foundation. The
Schwarzenegger administration, under intense criticism by grassroots
environmentalists, fishermen and Tribal members, authorized the
implementation of marine protected areas under the initiative through a
Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the foundation and the
California Department of Fish and Wildlife.
(Image at top of page: Photo of Ron LeValley (L), MLPA Initiative
Science Advisory Team Co-Chair, with Ken Wiseman, MLPA Initiative
Executive Director, by David Gurney.)
