WampaGate

Tribal leader convicted of rape in 1981, claims as war hero and police officer unsubstantiated

By Peter Kenney 

Earlier this year the federal government granted full recognition to the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe, the true Cape Cod native population. Federal recognition was greeted with celebration by the tribe's 1,500 or so members who felt finally vindicated in their long fight to have their rights ratified and their very identities validated. The most visible single figure among the Wampanoags was and remains Glenn Marshall, president of the tribal council.

Marshall is publicly identified as the tribe's leader even though the tribe does have a chiefIt was Marshall who formed a relationship with Cleveland, Ohio real estate and gambling developer Herb Strather. Strather supplied the millions of dollars needed to hire lawyers and lobbyists and to pay the operating expenses of the tribal council as they assembled the genealogy of the tribe and the more than thirty thousand pages of information which made up the final package submitted to the Bureau of Indian Affairs in support of the petition for recognition.

It is Marshall who is publicly identified as the tribe's leader even though the tribe does have a chief, Vernon Lopez. And it is Marshall who  has emerged as a complex man, a deceptively ordinary type who now hobnobs with government officials and billionaire gambling developers such as the two South Africans who are now his major stockholders.  Herb Strather is still a stockholder, but he is no longer the front man he was for the few years prior to recognition.

Claims as war hero record questioned

He was indicted in July of 1980 for rape...
He was convicted of rape on April 7, 1981 and sentenced to five years in Concord State Prison.And, Glenn Marshall has now emerged as even more complicated than ever, a war hero. There are  claims about his extraordinary military career. Marshall is now apparently saying that he was misrepresented by someone else in the tribe and that he never actually said what one Connecticut newspaper printed, that he had served three combat tours in Vietnam and that he had received five purple hearts and the silver star.

There have been other claims that he was a member of the U.S. Marines Corps' elite Force Reconnaissance. It now appears that the facts of Marshall's Vietnam service are that he was stationed at Da Nang, that he was awarded no decorations for wounds or valor, and that his total Marine Corps service was twenty-three months. One member of the tribe told me today, "I have seen his bullet wounds. I saw them yesterday, all up and down the back of his leg and you could see these big scars from the surgery."  One other person familiar with Marshall says she has often heard his story of being wounded in the knee while saving "four or five other guys."

Research by veterans who track down fraudulent claims made about military service and decorations says that Marshall did serve in the Marine Corps, but was not particularly heroic, serving as a rifleman, not a Reconnaissance Operator. This was confirmed during a telephone conversation with a Marine Corps source. Should Marshall wish to clarify any of these issues he has simply to make public his miltary record, his DD 214, as it is known. Senator John Kerry refused to make his DD 214 public during his failed presidential campaign amid charges that his three purple hearts and silver star (actually awarded to him) were the product of puffery and political influence.

Graduated Falmouth High a month before Khe Sanh

"I am a survivor of the siege of Khe Sanh in Vietnam" - MarshallAnother interesting story from Glenn Marshall comes from the record of his statement before a congressional committe on Wednesday, March 31, 2004. Marshall addressed the Committee on Resources of the U.S. House of representatives. He said, ".....I am a survivor of the siege of Khe Sanh in Vietnam." In October of 2003,  California's Republican congressman John Doolittle wrote to Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton that Glenn Marshall was a "hero of the Battle of Khe Sanh."

Timing is important. The Falmouth High School guidance office said in telephone conversation today that Glenn Marshall graduated from Falmouth High School in May of 1968. A web search of records for the siege of Khe Sanh shows that the base was "dismantled and abandoned on June 23, 1968."

Police record under a cloud as well, Rape charges in 1980's

Marshall's claim to have served as police officer with the metropolitan District Police is another troubling matter. Here again, this claim appeared in a Connecticut newspaper which is now apparently not sure of what it wrote. A telephone call to the Massachusetts State Police, who absorbed the MDC Police during Governor William Weld's  reorganization of state law enforcement agencies yields nothing. There never was a Glenn Marshall on the MDC Police. Another misunderstanding?

Glenn Marshall's felony criminal record could well prevent him from obtaining a liquor license at a beach-front clam shack in most towns.Certainly most serious of all is Marshall's criminal past. Case #BACR-40436 involves a matter heard in the criminal session of Barnstable Superior Court. He was indicted in July of 1980 for rape, a rape he committed on July 3, 1980. He was convicted of rape on April 7, 1981 and sentenced to five years in Concord State Prison. In July of 1981 Marshall petitioned the court to revise and revoke its decision and he was released from custody into probation with a requirement that he receive treatment. Perhaps his bitter war experiences were considered mitigating factors.

Consider:  In my town Glenn Marshall's felony criminal record could well prevent him from obtaining a liquor license at a beach-front clam shack. But, with billions of outside money behind him he is asking the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to allow him and his investors to operate a billion dollar casino.

Read previous stories;

• Freedom of Speech is not a Glen Marshall obligation
  Get ready for "King Marshall's War" against Joe Wamp
  
• It must be a clerical error
  Five Purple Hearts AND the Silver Star for Valor?
• Other recent articles by Peter Kenney
  

This reporter has called tribal council headquarters and left my name and number and e-mail address. I have also spoken to Tribal spokesman Scott Ferson by telephone once and by e-mail five times with only one response after he asked if I were a "journalist." Scott Ferson has received e-mails from me detailing the statements I have made. He has not responded at all other than to say he is glad to speak to reporters but I do not qualify.