Big settlement means new start for Cayugas

Onderwerp: Big settlement means new start for Cayugas
     Datum: 25 Jan 2000 20:51:00 -0000
       Van: kolahq@skynet.be
       Aan: aeissing@home.nl

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Mon, 24 Jan 2000
http://www.newsday.com/ap/rnmpmt1x.htm

Big settlement means new start for Cayugas, says attorney

SYRACUSE, N.Y. (AP) - New York state should pay a minimum $335 million to the Cayuga Indian Nation to settle a
two-century-old illegal land deal, money the tribe can use to pay for its rebirth, the Cayugas' attorney said Monday.

"The numbers involved in this case are very large, they are very considerable. But they cover a substantial amount of land, they
cover a substantial period of time," attorney Martin R. Gold told a nine-member jury as the Cayugas' historic damages trial got
under way in U.S. District Court.

"This case is about providing the Cayugas' a sum that they can use to get themselves started again," Gold said. "They could
acquire land, they could build some buildings ... they could make a home again."

Jurors were cautioned, though, by Assistant State Attorney General David B. Roberts, who said he would show that the
Cayugas were asking for too much money and already had been adequately paid for the land.

"This award should not be based on speculation, and, of course, it shouldn't be based on sympathy," Roberts said. "We are asking
you to do a factual, empirical, scientific study. It should be a decision based on sound facts."

Jurors are to determine how much money the Cayugas should receive for 64,015 acres - 100 square miles - of lost ancestral
land in Seneca and Cayuga counties. Presiding U.S. District Judge Neal McCurn previously ruled that the land was illegally
acquired by New York state in 1795 and 1807 because the state did not obtain the federal government's required approval for the
transactions.

The jury will decide how much the Cayugas should be compensated for the current market value of their lost lands as
well as what rent they should be paid for its occupancy and use over 205 years. It is the first of four pending New York land
claim cases to reach the damages phase.

McCurn has said the jury cannot award any land and that no present-day property owners in the claim area would face
eviction.

"To just kick everyone off and return the land to the Cayugas would be trying to right an ancient wrong with a modern-day
wrong," Gold told the jury, although he said the tribe would use the money to buy land from willing sellers.

The Cayugas, who once spread out over 3 million acres of upstate New York, are the only landless tribe among the five
aboriginal tribes of the Iroquois Confederacy. Currently, about 500 Cayugas live in western New York on and around the
Seneca's Cattaraugus reservation. Two other groups of Cayugas live in Canada and Oklahoma.

Attorneys began by outlining the trial for the nine jurors.

Gold said the Cayugas would not call any witnesses and instead rely on the federal government's single witness, a real estate
appraiser who has placed the land's current market value at $264.7 million and its rental value at $70.5 million.

The state, however, expected to call several witnesses and finish its case with testimony from its own expert appraiser, who put
the land's current worth at between $25 million and $40 million and its rental value at no more than $6 million.

Much of the testimony will be about the different methods the two appraisers used to do their calculations. On Monday, the
attorneys took turns trumpeting their side's method while telling jurors about the flaws it would show in the other side's
approach.

"Our role here is as tribal guardian," said Hank Meshorer, the lead attorney for the U.S. Justice Department, suggesting the
federal government's appraiser was more credible. "The United States has nothing to gain or lose in this case. He was told to
appraise the land's value. No more, no less."

Among the differences, the state's appraiser calculated the land's value by considering it as a large single tract, while the
federal government's appraiser figured it out as smaller subdivisions and used different formulas covering three separate
time periods.

Each side also used a different percentage to derive at the land's rental value. The state based its results on 2 percent of the
property's market value and the federal government used 6 percent.

Roberts said jurors also would hear evidence that New York has been paying the Cayugas a $1,800 annuity ever since purchasing
the land in 1795.

The trial is expected to last two to three weeks.

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