Man sentenced in El Dorado County tribal mail diversion case
By Denny Walsh, Sacramento Bee
An El Dorado County man was sentenced Monday to three months in federal prison for diverting to his own address mail meant for the Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians.
The band is a tribe made up of Miwok, Maidu and Nisenan Indians that governs the Shingle Springs Rancheria, a 160-acre reservation in El Dorado County, and owns and operates the Red Hawk Casino.
Cesar Caballero, 42, contests the tribe’s use of the name, claiming a tribe with which he is affiliated is the real Shingle Springs Band of Miwoks. In August 2010 he submitted three change-of-address orders at the Shingle Springs post office routing mail addressed to the Shingle Springs Rancheria to Caballero’s address in the community of El Dorado.
On Aug. 30, after a 2 1/2-hour non-jury trial, U.S. Magistrate Judge Edmund F. Brennan found Caballero guilty on three misdemeanor counts of obstructing the mail.