Shinnecock Nation sues Gov. Kathy Hochul, NYS AG Letitia James over 'illegal' easement of Sunrise Highway

The Shinnecock Indian Nation on Tuesday filed a federal lawsuit against Gov. Kathy Hochul, state Attorney General Letitia James and the head of the state Department of Transportation, alleging "continual violations" of its sovereignty over an easement for Sunrise Highway on tribal land.

In a 33-page filing in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, the Nation seeks to "bring into compliance with federal law the ongoing public use of an illegal 1959 easement" that allowed for the completion of Sunrise Highway in Hampton Bays. Lawyers representing the Nation are also asking for several injunctions that would require the state, among other things, to negotiate a new "valid right of way" through their Westwoods lands that lead to the Hamptons.

Late Tuesday the Shinnecock Nation filed a request for a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction asking a federal court judge to bar the state from imposing its Highway Law against the nation on protected Westwoods land the tribe has held “since time immemorial.” It asked the federal court to restrict state Supreme Court Justice Maureen Liccione, who has made several rulings against the tribe, from “issuing further orders in state court." 

“The state court is ignoring letters [by the Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Indian Affairs] stating that Westwoods is restricted-fee, aboriginal territory subject to the Non-Intercourse Act,” Shinnecock vice chairman Lance Gumbs said. “This is federal law and it supersedes state law.”

Newsday has previously reported Shinnecock Nation leaders' assertions that the 1959 easement was illegally obtained, lacking required signatures and any form of compensation for the tribe. They noted that it contained the name of a single tribal trustee who was served in Babylon rather than in the Southampton territory. 

 The state Department of Transportation and the Town of Southampton have separately sued Shinnecock leaders individually over two tribal economic development initiatives — two digital billboards on Sunrise Highway and an adjacent travel plaza/gas station — on the Shinnecock’s Westwoods property in Hampton Bays. Some residents have complained that both efforts have disrupted tranquil life on the wooded territory there, and a state court judge in Riverhead has ordered halts to both projects.

Construction of the gas station is halted, but the tribe has defied court orders to cease operating the digital billboards.

The Shinnecock Nation’s latest case — it has previously filed suit against Southampton challenging the town's zoning authority over Westwoods — follows an affirmation a year ago by the U.S. Department of the Interior that found the Westwoods are part of the tribe’s aboriginal territory and enjoyed special "restricted" status. 

Spokespersons for Hochul, James and Transportation Department Commissioner Marie Therese Dominguez did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Tela Troge, a Shinnecock Nation attorney who filed the suit and who has led its "land-back" legal efforts, also didn’t return a request for comment.

Filing suit against the state officials rather than their respective state agencies was intentional, and tribal lawyers cited court precedent that allows "declaratory and injunctive relief against state officers in their official capacity to stop ongoing violations of federal law," despite their implied immunity. The state and town have successfully sued Shinnecock Nation leaders using the same precedent.

The suit also asks the federal court for an injunction preventing the state officials from further state court actions relating to Westwoods and the digital billboards, and a declaration the three officials are violating federal law by lacking a "valid right-of-way" through Westwoods.

Taobi Silva, a former Shinnecock trustee who has also led the Shinnecock Sovereign Holdings company for economic development efforts and who sued the state over tribal fishing rights, noted in an interview Tuesday that a copy of the 1959 state easement alleges that it was "served" on his grandfather, Charles Smith, at a Babylon office, but that it doesn’t include his signature or any other tribal trustees, as required by law.

"He didn’t sign it and we didn’t get any payment for it," Silva said. Other state tribes receive millions of dollars for land easements, and LIPA, a state authority, a decade ago negotiated an easement with the tribe that included compensation to run a cable under the property. "This is literally the state appropriating our property."

The suit notes the 80-acre Westwoods property has been officially recorded as "restricted fee" after the federal government affirmed its status in January.

Accordingly, the state’s "permanent easement" through Westwoods was unlawful, and the state officials who drew it up "did not comply with federal law," rendering it "void," the suit says.

The suit is the latest escalation in an increasingly tangled series of legal filings by the state and Southampton Town to control and forestall recent Shinnecock actions at Westwoods. Most judgments in state courts have favored the state and the town.

The 2019 case filed by the state and its Transportation Department resulted in a state Appellate Division finding a year ago that the tribe’s digital billboards were subject to an earlier injunction, thereby ordering the tribe and its partners to cease billboard operations. The Nation has defied state court orders to shut the signs down, even in the face of recently granted contempt motions.

By Mark Harrington

mark.harrington@newsday.comMHarringtonNews

Mark Harrington, a Newsday reporter since 1999, covers energy, wineries, Indian affairs and fisheries.