On Thursday, a former chief judge for a tribal court in Montana pleaded guilty to charges associated with conning truck drivers with illegal speeding tickets.
On November 3, Roni Rae Brady, a former judge in the Northern Cheyenne Tribal Court, pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud in the U.S. District Court in Billings.
According to court documents, Brady orchestrated a scheme from 2012 through 2017 during which she set up a program to target truck drivers who where speeding on Highway 212.
As part of the scheme, truck drivers caught speeding were offered the option of either paying the $125 speeding fine or making a $250 donation and having the speeding ticket dismissed in court and removed from their driving records.
A total of $24,000 was collected in this manner. Court documents indicate that the money benefitted Brady and other tribal court members.
Prosecutors say that the tribe is not allowed to impose fines on anyone who is not Native American. No speeding ticket convictions were ever recorded, according to the Billings Gazette.