Three Affiliated Tribes of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation (MHA Nation)
Outcome
Two elected members of the MHA Nation Tribal Business Council were convicted of accepting over $260,000 in bribes and kickbacks from a construction contractor; Frank Grady was sentenced to 75 months in prison and Randall Phelan to 60 months in prison.
Details
Three Affiliated Tribes (MHA Nation) — Tribal Business Council Bribery (2013–2020)
Outcome: Two elected Tribal Business Council members were convicted of accepting over $260,000 in bribes from a contractor in exchange for steering tribal construction work; Frank Grady was sentenced to 75 months (6 years, 3 months) in federal prison and Randall Phelan was sentenced to 60 months (5 years) in federal prison.
The Three Affiliated Tribes of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation (MHA Nation) governs the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in North Dakota. The MHA Nation Tribal Business Council is the elected governing body responsible for, among other things, approving contracts for construction and other services on the reservation.
Frank Charles Grady, 61, served as an elected representative on the Tribal Business Council from November 2014 through November 2018. Beginning in approximately 2016 and continuing through 2017, Grady solicited and accepted bribes and kickbacks totaling more than $260,000 from a contractor providing construction services on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation. Grady was convicted at trial and sentenced on November 21, 2022, to 75 months in federal prison.
Randall Jude Phelan served as an elected representative on the Tribal Business Council from approximately November 2012 through mid-2020. From approximately 2013 through 2020, Phelan solicited and accepted bribes and kickbacks from the same contractor. Phelan pled guilty and was sentenced to 60 months in federal prison in 2023. The contractor involved was convicted as a co-conspirator.
Both cases were prosecuted as part of The Guardians Project. The scheme ran for nearly seven years across two council members and required the sustained participation of an outside construction contractor who made repeated bribe payments in exchange for contract awards.
Primary Source: Former Tribal Official Sentenced to Prison for Bribery Scheme — DOJ Office of Public Affairs
How Crucible Prevents This
The MHA Nation bribery scheme operated through the procurement process — elected council members steered construction contracts to a paying vendor in exchange for cash kickbacks. Crucible's procurement integrity controls, conflict-of-interest disclosure enforcement, and vendor relationship monitoring directly address this failure. Automated flagging of recurring contract awards to the same vendor, combined with required financial disclosure attestations at the decision point of each contract approval, are Crucible-class controls that would have surfaced the pattern before it ran for seven-plus years.
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