David J. Qualls and Tony D. Holden won their fight with the Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma but their legal battle with the tribe might not be over.
The two men were sued by the Peoria Tribe after wrongly taking more than $2 million in casino management fees.
Pottawatomie County District Judge John Canavan dismissed the Peoria Tribe’s lawsuit, though an attorney for the tribe told Tulsa World that they plan to appeal the ruling.
“We think it’s definitely wrongly decided,” said Peoria Tribe attorney Mike McBride III. “And we will be taking up on appeal. The tribe is very adamant about making itself whole.”
The case dates back to 2019, when the Peoria Tribe levied a $2 million fine against Qualls and Holden. They declared that the two’s management company, Direct Enterprise Development LLC, which managed the tribe’s Buffalo Run Casino & Resort in Miami, Oklahoma, were responsible for the notice of violations handed down by the National Indian Gaming Commission.
The report claimed the tribe had committed 77 violations. Some of the infractions included misusing gaming funds and operating the casino without an approved management agreement. The tribe blamed Qualls and Holden for the violations and sought to collect the fine.
The judge disagreed with the tribe. In his ruling, Canavan wrote that the tribe’s gaming commission was not authorized by tribal ordinance or the commission’s bylaws because “neither identified any amount of potential fine or method of calculation as required by federal, state or tribal constitutions.”
“Based on the failure to specify the amount of potential fines or a method of calculation, the Peoria Tribe Gaming Commission lacked jurisdiction to issue any fine against either defendant and the unauthorized fines which plaintiff seeks to collect in this action therefore violate due process,” Canavan’s order continued.
“We are pleased with the district court outcome,” Holden’s attorney, Joe Vorndran, told Tulsa World.
“The parties had three years to compile evidence and take depositions and create support for their claim and the court took that information and we are pleased with the court’s ruling which led to the dismissal of all of the plaintiff’s claims against Mr. Holden and Mr. Qualls,” Vorndran said.
Holden said he has spent millions on attorney’s fees.
“I’ve lost everything I own,” Holden said. “Everything. Home. Marriage. Every dollar. And there’s no recourse because they have sovereign immunity.” “I stayed silent for five years,” Holden said. “I just sat there and kept my mouth shut and just got torn up. And this day finally came.”
