Members of the council face sanctions including fines up $150 and 30 days in jail. A hearing on the matter will be held Wednesday in tribal court.

On the same day as the contempt judgment was released, Shoshone chairman St. Clair Jr. sent his letter to the BIA requesting that either the agency set up an independent court on the reservation or restore the previous funding model.

St. Clair Jr. said the Shoshone no longer recognize the authority of the tribal court.

“NAT is now paying the Judge and having him enter orders as the puppet of NAT,” he wrote, referring to the Northern Arapaho Tribe.

The Shoshone assert that Chief Judge St. Clair was an at-will employee and that the tribe ended his employment on Oct. 3.

Arapaho chairman Dean Goggles fired back in his own letter last week, arguing that the BIA was barred from establishing its own court on the reservation. He said the Shoshone’s claim that the tribal court no longer had authority was false.

The Shoshone’s arguments are “untethered from any notion of separation of powers, and therefore a violation of that Tribe’s own laws,” Goggles wrote.