Checks in Cobell Settlement case to be mailed this week

A judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has approved an order to issue payments to members of the trust administration class in the Cobell Settlement case. On Thursday, Senior U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan approved the distribution of checks by the claims administrator, the Garden City Group Inc., to the class membership. According to the Indian Trust Settlement website, the Garden City Group will mail checks to the current addresses it has on file for class members. The Garden City Group anticipates the first set of checks to be sent on Monday, and they could take from five to seven days to arrive, according to the update posted on the website. The settlement is from the 1996 class action lawsuit filed by the late Elouise Cobell of the Blackfeet Tribe in Montana. Cobell was an Individual Indian Money account holder and uncovered years of neglect by the federal government when it came to keeping accurate records of Indian trust accounts. For years, the federal government collected payments for these accounts from activities such as farming and grazing leases, timber sales, mining, and oil and gas production on trust land. The settlement, which was about $3.4 billion, was reached between the Interior and Treasury Departments and the individual Indian plaintiffs in December 2009 in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C...more