Fake Cherokee chief pleads guilty to fraud

PITTSBURGH (AP) — A former Pennsylvania man who pretended to be a Cherokee Indian chief and billionaire oil tycoon pleaded guilty in federal court to a multimillion-dollar wire-fraud conspiracy Wednesday.

Federal prosecutors said Robert Eugene Cheney, 79, who now lives in Las Vegas, and another man who remains charged in the scheme, stole at least $2.5 million from at least 10 investors in various states and Canada. The investors believed they were investing in oil exploration ventures that Cheney claimed to control.

Investors were told Cheney was Chief Soaring Eagle, a “high-ranking official” of the “Sovereign Cherokee Nation,” according to allegations spelled out in the wire-fraud count that Cheney pleaded guilty to before a federal judge in Erie, Pa.

Cheney claimed to head a charity named Helping All Races of People and to be a billionaire tycoon who could offer high-return investments — with profits up to 100 percent.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Marshall Piccinini said Cheney and the man accused of being his accomplice, 53-year-old Joseph Michael Guess of Phoenix, spent most of the investments on themselves and created fake documents to make the investors think the deals were legitimate.

Cheney and Guess were prosecuted in Erie because they lived in Conneaut Lake in northwestern Pennsylvania during much of the alleged scam, which prosecutors say ran from 2003 until they were indicted last year.

“We are pleased that he entered a guilty plea that would cover his obligation to pay restitution to all his victims,” Piccinini said.