Fred Paquin of St. Ignace, a former tribal police chief, pled guilty late last week to conspiracy to defraud the United States by dishonest means, the first count of a 15-count federal indictment filed in January. The charge involves filing false documents, including invoices and grant reports, for federal grants.

As part of the plea agreement, signed Thursday, July 22, all other charges against him are being dropped, as will all charges against his daughter, Mary Cullen, in a case that was to go to trial in federal court in Marquette August 16.

The motion to dismiss the other charges will be made at the time Mr. Paquin is sentenced by U.S. District Judge R. Allan Edgar December 13 in Marquette. He faces a sentence of up to five years in prison and he and Mrs. Cullen will be required to pay restitution to the tribe and the federal justice department.

A friend and former St. Ignace city police chief, Tim Matelski, attended Mr. Paquin's court hearing in Marquette and reported to The St. Ignace News Monday that the count of “conspiracy to defraud the United States by dishonest means” concerned placing defibrillators, medical devices to aid people in cardiac distress, in the Kewadin Shores Casino, instead of keeping them in the tribal police office as the federal grant specified. Mr. Matelski’s observation was corroborated by the U.S. attorney's office, although that specific charge was only discussed in court and is not contained in the plea agreement.

Mr. Paquin, a former Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians police chief, pled not guilty in January to 15 charges related to an alleged conspiracy to defraud the United States of America by dishonest means. Mrs. Cullen, also formerly a tribal employee, was arraigned on four charges in the same case March 5 in the federal court and stood mute, leading the court to enter a plea of not guilty on her behalf. She was charged, among other things, with being paid by the tribal police department while teaching school.

A third defendant, police department office manager Hope Schlehuber, was previously convicted of conspiracy to defraud the United States as a result of her involvement in the case and was sentenced to 11 months home confinement.

The federal court reported that Mr. Paquin and Ms. Schlehuber obtained grants from the U.S. Department of Justice to fund the police department's unmet financial needs, but rather than complying with the terms of the grants, they “created dummy purchases that resulted in payments from these grants to numerous vendors of police equipment and uniforms, where the funds were maintained as credits to the tribal police department,” according to the federal court. “The funds were then no longer subject to oversight by the tribal accounting department or the federal justice department once transferred to the vendors under the guise of actual purchases. Mr. Paquin was then able to use the funds at any time and in any way he saw fit, regardless of the terms of the grants,” federal attorney Donald Davis reported in a statement issued Friday.