SEATTLE — Stillaguamish tribal members were for years victimized by the Goodridge family’s contraband cigarette sales and money-laundering schemes, current tribal chairman Shawn Yanity told a U.S. District Court judge in Seattle on Monday.
Ed Goodridge Sr. and his son, Eddie Goodridge Jr., both former tribal leaders, were sentenced to 14 months in federal prison. Sara Schroedl, a cousin of the Goodridges’, was sentenced to eight months in federal prison. Linda Goodridge, Ed Goodridge Sr.’s wife, who is not a tribal member, was sentenced to four months of home detention.
The four also must pay more than $25 million to the state to make up for the cigarette taxes they avoided paying through their Blue Stilly Smoke Shop in Arlington.
Ed Goodridge Sr. faced more than seven years in prison. The others faced more than six years in prison.
Schroedl and the Goodridge men all were members of the Stillaguamish tribal council when they, along with Linda Goodridge, took ownership of the smoke shop as a private business operating on tribal trust land.
This was a conflict of interest for the Goodridges, who controlled half the tribal council’s votes when it approved allowing the four to sell cigarettes even though the tribe did not have a cigarette sales compact required by the state.
“We felt we were definitely misled,” Yanity said. “The tribe was a victim in this situation.”
The Goodridges and Schroedl all pleaded guilty in November to conspiracy to traffic in contraband cigarettes and to making money from criminal behavior. The four made $55 million between 2003 and 2007 through the smoke shop, where cigarettes were sold at rock-bottom prices because there was no added state tax.
U.S. District Court Judge James L. Robart gave Schroedl a shorter prison term than the Goodridge men because she was not involved in the day-to-day operations of the smoke shop. Linda Goodridge avoided prison because she was not a member of the tribal council that voted to allow the smoke shop to open.
Both Goodridge men and Schroedl have held powerful positions in Stillaguamish tribal leadership at various times. Eddie Goodridge Jr. was the tribe’s executive director until he and the others were charged late last year with federal crimes.
During the sentencing hearing, Robart read a portion of a letter he received from a Stillaguamish tribal member, stating that while some Indians were in such poverty that they slept in their cars, the Goodridges used smoke shop profits to buy luxury automobiles that they then drove through the area.
“It cannot have been lost on the defendants that they were reaping benefits and gains that were disproportionate to the situation they were in,” Robart said.
Ed Goodridge Sr. and Eddie Goodridge Jr. apologized for their actions, but both added that they always had the best interests of their tribe at heart.
“The decision was made, and I regret that decision,” Eddie Goodridge Jr. said. “This thing spiraled out of control.”
The Goodridges and Schroedl opened the Blue Stilly Smoke Shop in 2003, after the tribe told Stormmy Paul, a Tulalip tribal member, that he could no longer run his smoke shop on Stillaguamish land. Paul was convicted in late 2007 of money laundering and selling counterfeit and untaxed cigarettes in a scheme that involved partners in China, South America and American Indians in the Northwest.
In a letter to Robart, Ed Goodridge Sr. said he and his family decided to operate the smoke shop as a private business, on land leased from the tribe, with the intention of turning the profits over to the tribal government. The Goodridges said they paid taxes to the tribe.
“The tribe needed the funding badly to support other tribal programs and pay tribal wages,” he wrote.
Federal agents raided the shop in 2007 in an investigation into illegal cigarette sales, but the Goodridges reopened it a few days later.
That shows total disrespect for the law, Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Cohen said Monday.
“The principal motivation on behalf of all the defendants was one thing and one thing only, and that was their own greed,” he said.
The Goodridges and Schroedl continued to operate the shop illegally until May of last year, when the Stillaguamish tribe signed a cigarette sales compact with the state.
Ed Goodridge Sr. has faced legal trouble in the past. He was convicted two years ago of disorderly conduct after he tried to stop police officers from responding to a domestic violence complaint. He tried to kick over police motorcycles and resisted arrest, according to court documents.
In a 2001 letter to the state Department of Revenue, the agency Washington relies upon to monitor cigarette taxes, Goodridge warned that agency staffers were not allowed onto tribal land.
Eddie Goodridge Jr. has been called “Fast Eddie” for his apparent love of sports cars, which he has driven throughout the area. The Goodridge family owns a collection of pricey vehicles, several of which have in the past been stored in vast garages at their Arlington home.
Ed and Linda Goodridge also own the Old Sylvana General Store, where they sell die-cast and model cars. They also host a car show every year in downtown Sylvana.
The Blue Stilly Smoke Shop’s lease on Stillaguamish land ended early this month. The Stillaguamish tribal government took over the smoke shop then, under the new name Stilly Smoke Signals.
The Stillaguamish Tribe continues to cooperate with federal agents in their on-going investigation into circumstances surrounding the Goodridge’s leadership of the tribe and the smoke shop.*
Krista J. Kapralos: 425-339-3422, kkapralos@heraldnet.com.
*Correction, May 10, 2009: This article originally misstated the tribe’s relationship with the investigation.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
