Chapter 17: Julie Matt's Story

Julie Matt is a Northern Cheyenne woman in early middle age. She is slender, attractive, intelligent, and athletic. She is aggressive and feminine, and she has courage. I am proud to know her and to tell you her story.
I first met Julie Matt in company with Chuck Cook, an investigative reporter from the Arizona Republic, a major Phoenix, Arizona newspaper. Chuck had come to Billings to interview me on November 11, 1987, as part of his investigative series titled “Fraud in Indian Country.”
Since that time Julie and I shared the speaker’s platform on two occasions, and we spent several hours talking together. Julie received brutal treatment from BIA. She put up a good fight but lost, and her soul was forever bruised by the experience. I did not know Julie’s story until after I left BIA. She worked there before I did, and was fired for what was officially called insubordination. Let’s look at Julie’s experience.
Julie worked as a Budget Analyst (and assistant) for approximately four years under Bill Benjamin, the head of the Financial Management Department. She resigned under threat of being fired and brought an EEO (Equal Employment Opportunities) complaint claiming abuse and harassment. There are several similarities between her case and mine.
She was charged with insubordination after speaking out about illegal trust fund disbursements made by Benjamin. This concerned the same Fort Peck Docket #184 trust fund that later (with no prior knowledge about Julie) I also found to be a problem. [Docket #184 is described in Chapter -8-]. Julie Matt spent over ten thousand dollars to hire attorneys to press her case. She ran out of funds and had to give up without a just solution.
Julie noticed that an illegal payment had been made; a U.S. Treasury check was issued against an account without enough money in it to cover the check. If you or I did that, it would be called a bad check and the bank would bounce it. In theory you could go to jail.
To prevent federal employees from writing Treasury checks that might bounce, there are laws to forbid it. Who else but Bill Benjamin, BIA’s Financial Manager, had ordered the check issued, overriding the rules and controls.
Part of Julie’s job was to prevent problems from happening, so she spoke out, and told Benjamin that the payment was illegal, which it was. Benjamin shouted and screamed at her, and said she was making “accusations” against him. She was threatened with disciplinary action if she continued to speak out about problems within the office. Later she was reprimanded for telling Benjamin that the payment was illegal. Reprisal was swift and strong, and it was organized.
Bill Ellingson, Benjamin’s next in command, called her into his office. She was told that she did not have a leg to stand on because she had told a supervisor that he had made an error. Derogatory innuendo is used by supervisors in all of these cases, since it creates doubts (in the nature of gossip) that are impossible to answer or disprove. Julie felt fear. She knew other women employees in the office who felt they were discriminated against by Benjamin, and she knew they were also afraid to speak out.
Julie filed a complaint, and life was not to be the same for her ever again. She found that other BIA employees shunned her, and would not speak to her - this went on for a year. She found there was favoritism (not in her favor) in computing hours worked and time off.
Benjamin tried to get her out or break her spirit, and she was harassed because she had filed a complaint. Three of Benjamin’s employees wrote letters to him, complaining in a general way that Julie was hard to get along with. I can not say that Benjamin ordered the letters written, or if perhaps his loyal employees simply wished to please him with this intimate assistance. For whatever reasons, they assisted in his cause to belittle Julie as a human being.
On January 23, 1985 Benjamin issued a letter to her. It reads “This is your notice that I propose to separate you from employment from the Federal Service ... for the following reasons’”
“Insubordination: Resisting competent authority, and making false, malicious, unfounded, and irresponsible statements against supervisors.”
The letter continues on about “resisting competent authority,” “disrespectful conduct” and more.
To quote from page 2 of Benjamin’s letter:
“You have developed a pattern of harassing other employees and supervisors. In addition, you have exhibited a pattern of disrespectful and insubordinate actions towards supervisors and management officials. These actions can no longer be tolerated.”
BIA as an entity, and other federal agencies conspired against Julie Matt. Benjamin’s supervisors did not strike down his actions, but instead approved of them. Who knows the degree to which he acted on his own, and the degree to which he faithfully carried out the wishes and policies of his BIA superiors in Billings and in Washington. They had the effect of being a solid front with locked horns, against which Julie was helpless, and this amounted to a kind of gang-rape. There was no effective appeals process open to Julie.
Julie Matt was not the first person to have this experience. I must use great care in describing things learned from BIA informants, because they took a personal risk in coming to see me. They are vulnerable and can be reached with reprisal, so I can not be very specific or their identity will be penetrated. However, my BIA informants later described similar cases for me that took place prior to Julie’s, and showed me copies of similar letters written by Bill Benjamin. This was not the first time such things had been done, nor was it to be the last, and the way Julie was handled by BIA is very, very similar to my own case.
Indians who live on reservations all can tell their own stories of reprisal from BIA for complaint. The effect of this is that only very minor complaints are allowed, and serious complaints that would embarrass BIA are forbidden.
You have had just a brief summary of Julie Matt’s experience with reprisal for reporting corruption in the Billings Area office. The complete story would fill a book of its own.
How do I know that all of this is true ? She gave me boxes of sworn statements, and copies of her appeal. I saw her attorney’s bills; she paid them and lost all she and her husband owned, and they went deeply into debt. She is still vulnerable since her husband is employed by BIA. They can get at her through him, and it seems likely they might try.
She stood up to corruption with courage and strength. She did her best and consumed her life savings in her battle for justice with BIA. The appeals process was not effective and she lost. Julie went as far as she could go. I respect her as a woman, as an Indian, and as a fine human being. As a Northern Cheyenne, surely she has earned her place as one of the Children of Heroes. Thank you, Julie Matt.
In March, 1988 Julie and I, and a third whistleblower spoke at the Sunday morning service at the Unitarian Fellowship (Church) in Billings. The crowd was rather small; people don’t like to hear unpleasant stories. There were two or three Crow Indians who had come to hear us. This, as well as the story about me in the Arizona Republic, is what led to my later contact from the Crow Tribe.
The Arizona Republic story about me was the page one Sunday feature story in Phoenix on November 22, 1987. A few words were also said about Julie Matt. The story continued on page six, and on that page was a story about problems the Crow Tribal Government was having with BIA.
It struck me that while a white CPA made page one, an Indian woman (Julie) got only brief mention and the several thousand member Crow Tribe was relegated to page six. To me it seemed unfair that the problems of one white man should rate more public attention than the problems of thousands of Indians. I resolved to “share my medicine” with the Crow, and it wasn’t long before I would get that chance.