West Slope businessman pleads guilty to stealing from tribe

By Denny Walsh, Sacramento Bee

Like his two co-conspirators before him, Darrell Patrick Hinz on Friday confessed his role in an $18 million theft from the United Auburn Indian Community, which owns the booming Thunder Valley Casino Resort near Lincoln.

Hinz pleaded guilty before U. S. District Judge Troy L Nunley to conspiring in the massive fraud with Bart Wayne Volen, a developer and contractor who did a building project for the tribe, and Gregory Scott Baker, the tribe’s administrator at the time. Hinz also admitted laundering the loot to hide its source and filing a false income tax return for the year 2007.

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