Lie about service costs tribal chair his seat
The Associated Press
Posted : Tuesday Aug 28, 2007 6:49:22 EDT

MASHPEE, Mass. — A tribal council seeking to build a $1 billion casino in the state voted Monday to immediately remove its chairman after he acknowledged a rape conviction and that he lied about his military service.

Glenn Marshall, 57, met with the Mashpee Wampanoag tribal council and offered to resign effective in 30 days, but the council voted 10-1 to make his resignation effective immediately, said Greg D’Agostino, a spokesman for the tribe.

Marshall handed over his day-to-day duties to Vice Chairman Shawn Hendricks on Friday after the 1981 rape conviction and military record lies were made public in a story in the Cape Cod Times.

The newspaper, citing its archives and court records, reported that he was convicted of raping a 22-year-old visitor to Cape Cod. He was sentenced to five years, but served three months and was placed on probation, court records show.

During a congressional oversight hearing on the tribe’s request for federal recognition in 2004, Marshall testified he survived the siege of Khe Sahn, during which Marines fought back a 77-day onslaught by the North Vietnamese from January to April of 1968. Marshall made the same claim in a Cape Cod Times interview in 1998 and before a state gaming panel in 2002.

But during the siege, Marshall was still a senior in high school in Falmouth. School records confirm he graduated from Lawrence High School on June 9, 1968, a school spokeswoman said.

A published telephone listing for Marshall could not immediately be found.

In a statement Friday, Marshall said, “I am sorry to have distorted my record and to allow it to stand uncorrected.”

He also acknowledged the rape conviction in an interview with The Boston Globe published Saturday.

“It’s an apology to my family, tribe, and the Commonwealth,” Marshall said. “I could only ask that they could forgive me, because I’m not a bad person.”

The tribe will elect a new vice chairman in October. Marshall was in his second four-year term. The next scheduled election is 2008.

Ellie