After the Cayuga County Sheriff's Office raided two of its convenience stores for untaxed cigarettes last Tuesday, the Cayuga Nation will seek to have any pending felony tax evasion charges dismissed before they are filed on the grounds that the search warrant violated their sovereignty.

The tribe's attorney, Dan French, said his office will argue on Wednesday that a warrant obtained by the sheriffs' and district attorneys' offices in Cayuga and Seneca counties violated a state injunction that limited the enforcement of tax laws on American Indians, and that the Lake Side Trading stores in Union Springs and Seneca Falls are part of a 64,000-acre reservation established in a treaty by President George Washington in the 1794.

The tribe, along with other Indian nations in New York, have claimed they are exempt from collecting sales and excise taxes on their property because their businesses are protected by their sovereign nation status.

The tribe will also argue that all of the evidence collected in the raid, which includes 1.5 million cigarettes, needs to be returned because the search was illegal.

“They are trying to apply a law that the state will not enforce, and there is a reason it's not being enforced,” French said. “And when (Cayuga County District Attorney Jon Budelmann) says there is no reservation, he is just flat wrong.”

But Budelmann said his office maintains the raid was legal and that the injunction applies to one small portion of the tax law that does not apply to the current situation.

“They are maintaining that we got the warrant under a section of the law that the state has an injunction on, but we did not even mention that part of the law when we got the search warrant,” Budelmann said. “They violated other sections of the tax law. We also don't believe those stores are on reservations.

“Maybe there use to be a reservation a long time ago, or there was a claim that there had been a reservation, but that claim is gone. There is no reservation there anymore; they bought that land on the market.”

Budelmann said the stores were raided after an investigation was conducted into the alleged sale of untaxed cigarettes. The investigation included surveillance and controlled purchases of untaxed cigarettes.

In paperwork filed with Supreme Court Judge Kenneth Fisher, who signed the search warrant that was used last week, French also argues that the tribe should be allowed to resume selling cigarettes because the sales are used to fund health care and other social services within the reservation.

While Budelmann has warned the nation they could face additional tax evasion charges if they continue to sell untaxed cigarettes, French said his clients have not ruled out restocking their shelves.

“The law does not apply to the tribes and the state knows that, and that is why they did not help with this investigation,” French said. “The state told them that they were pursuing negotiations with us but they did it any way. The nation is examining all of their options, but as of now they have not restocked their cigarettes.”

Staff writer Nate Robson can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 248 or nathan.robson@lee.net