ROSEBUD – The Rosebud Sioux Tribal Council met with staff from the US Attorney’s office to discuss local crimes involving human trafficking, sexual abuse and drug use.
The meeting was the result of a motion approved last summer where the tribal council asked to speak with federal officials regarding the process of prosecuting sex trafficking and drug distribution offenders on the Rosebud reservation. In attendance was US Attorney Allison Ramsdale, US Attorney Troy Morley and US Attorney Gregg Peterman. Peterman is also a member of the Not Invisible Act Commission.
According to the US Attorney’s website, the Not Invisible Act Commission was created in 2022 to “make recommendations to the Departments of the Interior and Justice to improve intergovernmental coordination and establish best practices for state, Tribal, and federal law enforcement, to bolster resources for survivors and victim’s families, and to combat the epidemic of missing persons, murder, and trafficking of Native American, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian people.”
Morley also serves as the Tribal Liaison for seven tribes in South Dakota, a position he has held since 2015. Most recently, he was also named the MMIP Great Plains Regional Coordinator. His office was responsible for the recent indictments for a 1991 murder on the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate reservation, as well as a sex trafficking crime committed by a tribal citizen from Standing Rock.
“There are agents out there and they are working hard to get these cases to where they belong and hold people accountable,” stated Morley, who works with law enforcement on seven reservations in South Dakota. “We’ve been doing cold case reviews since 1999 when the FBI looked at that list from Pine Ridge. Again, in 2012 we went back through that list and also included any case from any reservation in South Dakota. There were some cases from Rosebud that were reviewed and still remain on that list.”
Steve DeNoyer, Jr., who serves as the RST Police Chief Administrator, told the tribal council that they “should be aware of what is going on in your communities and you know some of what’s going on but realistically you have no clue.”
“Our reservation is bad in some areas. It’s bad when you have people putting horse tranquilizers in drugs to have their way with women. Those women wake up in the middle of the pasture with no clothes on and no idea of what happened,” continued DeNoyer. “That makes our job tough. It makes your job tough. The federal prosecutors don’t hear about these cases because there isn’t enough evidence to send to them.”
DeNoyer also noted that over 90% of the crimes that happen on Rosebud are drug related. “Alcohol is still our number one problem. Meth isn’t far behind but alcohol is still our problem by far.”
US Attorney Ramsdale stated her office prosecutes cases referred by local police, the BIA, the FBI and other cases that come to them. “We do not take cases referred by the tribal president,” she said. “I came here to talk about human trafficking. I wanted to share with you that two months ago we indicted a man and woman from Winner for human trafficking.” She urged tribal officials to report any human trafficking crimes to her office. The US Attorney and her staff are also available to speak to students in local schools. The entire meeting can be viewed on the RST YouTube channel.
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