Officers seize Creeks' cigarettes shipment
By Clifton Adcock
Tulsa World, Okla.
(MCT)
The Muscogee (Creek) Nation is weighing its legal options after a shipment of the tribe's cigarettes was confiscated Wednesday by the Oklahoma Highway Patrol and the Oklahoma Tax Commission.
The truck was stopped by the OHP about 9:30 a.m. on U.S. 75 at 221st Street as it traveled from the tribe's headquarters in Okmulgee to smokeshops in the Tulsa area. Tax Commission agents were on hand to confiscate the cigarettes, Creek Nation Attorney General Roger Wiley said.
About $40,000 worth of cigarettes were seized, Tax Commission spokeswoman Paula Ross said.
Wiley said the search of the truck and seizure of the cigarettes not only was a violation of tribal sovereignty but that the driver did not give consent to search the vehicle and no search warrant was presented.
''The Muscogee Nation takes the position that this was an illegal confiscation by the Oklahoma Tax Commission, and we are evaluating all of our legal remedies at this time, and we intend to aggressively pursue our legal remedies," Wiley said. "They used bolt cutters on the lock on the back of the truck and took what they wanted. They violated the Fourth Amendment."
The cigarettes seized were brands not listed on the state's Master Settlement Agreement list, maintained by the Attorney General's Office, which states what brands of cigarettes can be sold in the state, Ross and Wiley said.
Although such cigarettes might have a tribal tax stamp, they do not bear a state tax stamp and are free of any state taxes.
Cigarettes not on the Master Settlement Agreement list have been a sticking point between the tribe and the state.
State officials say such cigarettes sold at tribal smokeshops are illegal, but tribal officials say it's a matter of tribal sovereignty.
In February, state Attorney General Drew Edmondson filed a lawsuit in Tulsa County District Court against 15 people who own or operate Creek Nation-affiliated smokeshops.
The filing claims that "the object of the conspiracy was to produce unlawful profits and gain from the sale of cigarettes in violation of the Federal Contraband Cigarette Trafficking Act, the State Complementary Act and State Cigarette Tax Act."
The Creek Nation has been one of the few holdouts in not signing a tobacco compact with the state and has created various methods of obtaining low-tax cigarettes and cigarettes without state tax stamps, a Tulsa World investigation has shown.
One of those methods includes obtaining discount brands, such as King Mountain, Seneca and Skydancer, from other tribes and selling them at tribal smokeshops on restricted or trust land outside of the state's jurisdiction.