Shinnecocks' new status shines light on 2005 land claim

Now that the Shinnecock Indian Nation and its financial backers are trying to fast-track casino plans, the tribe's 2005 land claim could come back into focus.

In 2007, U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Platt dismissed a suit, filed by the tribe against New York State, Southampton Town and more than a dozen entities, claiming ownership of 3,600 acres of Southampton land. The claim included the Shinnecock Hills golf course, Southampton College and land as far west as the Shinnecock Canal.

"The wrongs about which the Shinnecocks complain are grave, but they are also not of recent vintage, and the disruptive nature of the claims that seek to redress these wrongs tips the equity scale in favor of dismissal," Platt wrote.

But the claims are not dead. In an October 2007 decision, Platt granted the tribe's request that a motion for reconsideration of the suit be postponed until an appeals court rules on a related case. That case, involving the Oneida tribe, remains pending.

In a Newsday interview last year, Michael Malik, general manager of Gateway Casino Resorts, the Detroit group funding the Shinnecocks, said the land claim retains value.

"There's a $1.2-billion land claim that needs to be settled," Malik said, along with another case on appeal seeking to build a casino in Hampton Bays. Under settlements elsewhere, tribes have ceded their claims in exchange for rights to develop gambling ventures.

"You could trade off that to build a facility in the Catskills. There could be a second in Queens or Nassau" or Suffolk, Malik said, stressing that all decisions are up to the tribe.

While real estate agents and homeowners in 2005 took the tribe at its word that it wasn't seeking to evict them, the land claim carried weight. Title companies wrote insurance covering loss to a potential Shinne-cock victory, said Rusty Banks, owner of South Bay Abstract, a Southampton title company. But no more. "I think everybody assumes that it just wouldn't happen," Banks said.

Harry Nelson, owner of South Fork Realty in Southampton, said he has never encountered a problem with lands in previously contested areas, but he isn't ruling it out. "You don't know what's going to happen down the road," he said.