Former chairman of Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe sentenced to prison

Cedric Cromwell, 2017 photo.

BOSTON – Former Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe chairman Cedric Cromwell has been sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison on federal charges of tax fraud and extortion.

Cromwell was sentenced in federal court last Wednesday. The case was connected to alleged dealings during the First Light Resort and Casino project in Taunton while Cromwell was the chairman in the 2010s.

A judge also ordered restitution to be paid over a quarter-million dollars.

Cromwell was first indicted in 2020 for bribery and extortion, along with the owner of an architecture firm, David DeQuattro of Rhode Island. Authorities alleged that Cromwell received payments and benefits in exchange for a multi-million-dollar contract given to the architecture firm with the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe’s Gaming Authority.

In September 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice Massachusetts District announced that the First Circuit Court of Appeals reversed DeQuattro’s conviction for federal-program bribery. The case was remanded for further proceedings, and the court ordered the defendant acquitted. Meanwhile, the appeals court reversed Cromwell’s convictions for bribery and reinstated his extortion convictions. 

Despite a lengthy court battle that put the spotlight on the Mashpee Tribe’s federal status, the First Light Casino opened this past January, which the Tribe said was originally called a “welcome center”.

Last April, the United States Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal from a group of Taunton residents who sued the federal government, arguing that the Biden administration acted unlawfully by reaffirming the reservation status of the Mashpee Wampanoag because they said the tribe was not officially recognized when the Indian Reorganization Act became law in 1934. The U.S. Department of the Interior placed over 300 acres of land in Mashpee and Taunton into trust.