11/26/2024
Open letter to Mount Tabor Indian Community,
My dear brothers and sisters of the MTIC it looks as if we have been faced with our proverbial “11th hour.” I’ve been made aware of attempts to try to shut down the longstanding governmental page of “Mount Tabor Indian Community.” These false complaints are stating that our page, which has been “liked”, supported, and “followed, for over a decade, and by over 400 of our community members and nearly 800 other supporters, has been reported as a fake by Jesse Thompson et al. It seems these false complaints originated because our page is a social media outlet that Jesse Thompson does not control. Our page is the originator and source of our official Mount Tabor Indian Community group. If the page is closed it will likely mean the closing of this group. Our voices, on our long-standing page, and the new official group for our community, will be censored and deleted, effectively banned from the discourse, the same way that I, as chair, and other members have been censored and banned within the Jesse Thompson friends group which he poses as an official Mount Tabor Indian Community group. No group belonging to the MTIC could so easily censor, ban, and remove our membership. Only a group controlled by an individual abusing the name of our community could exercise that kind of power and abuse of power over the community and not be held accountable.
We will not be deterred. We must all continue to fight. For myself, and especially now that Jesse Thompson has attempted to limit the communications of the chair to the community, the fight must now be taken public. I feel confident that the whole of the community, whether they be a supporter of my efforts as chair or a detractor, will be able to find common ground in agreeing that I did my best to try and expose and resolve the issues at hand within the community before going public. Various Federally Recognized Tribes, Native American advocacy groups, and even the news and media, were allowing time, which is a form of grace, for me to able to prepare our community for the more controversial and harmful elements of what is to be exposed. Sadly, even where it concerns those agencies mentioned above, Jesse Thompson has made enemies across all fronts by refusing contact, refusing to comment, refusing to participate, making threats, and insulting and name calling. Jesse Thompsons complete approach with the greater public has been one of entitlement, acting as if he owns our community, and adding to that his absolute lack of professionalism has brought more negative attention on the MTIC. We put ourselves in the line of fire following the controversy and attacks we faced after the “Peace Circle” statue unveiling in Grapevine, TX. The worst-case scenario has happened after these events which is that Jesse Thompson has manipulated his way into becoming the public face of MTIC and the czar over all MTIC communications.
I will continue to do all I can by “damage control” while working to expose the corrupt elements within the MTIC. While I do this, I will also do all I can to protect the precious and authentic elements of our community and our shared Native American histories. I will be working in unison with other Native American tribes and advocacy groups to flush out the elements of our community that don’t belong and lift and celebrate all those wonderful parts that do. MTIC means so much to so many, and I will do all I can to protect it. I cannot, however, take on all this work alone. We as a community must step up to ask the hard questions, except the hard truths, take a stand against censorship within our community, and take a stand against corrupt tyrannies within our ranks.
Before Jesse Thompson et al have the chance to achieve any more success in silencing opposing voices, even to the office of current chair, I will leave you all with some of the key elements discovered in an ongoing investigation into JC Thompson and Jesse Thompson. Use this information as a starting point to form your own questions and begin your own investigations. Refuse to accept one more day of excuses or being led on! I may be silenced on social media soon but do your part and trust in the fact that I am working diligently together with some powerful agencies to prepare to bring all this evidence to light over the next few weeks. Expect a public statement from me soon!
My current understanding of the evidence is as follows:
1. Professional and amateur genealogists have been consulted and have yet to be able to uncover any direct evidence that JC Thompson can successfully prove a line of descent from any Native American person (JC Thompson expressed this concern himself and shared it with myself, Tanner Bonham, and others).
2. JC Thompson’s affiliation with the controversial Missouri group “Northern Cherokee Nation” was much more involved than JC Thompson presented to what would eventually become the membership of the MTIC. This Missouri Northern Cherokee Nation is at the center of a $300 million dollar controversy involving non-Native Americans posing as Native Americans to receive benefits and grants.
3. JC Thompson instructed Billy Bean to use MTIC funds to “grease palms” to try and obtain Federal Recognition. JC Thompson received funds from various families such as the Soules family and the Carlisle family which he used personally and for “buying scholarship” in the forms of paying people to write, publish, or allow articles to be published that supported the narrative of the historicity of the MTIC as it was put forward by JC. Members of the Soules and Carlisle families eventually dialed down in support and there was a request made, a line drawn, that JC Thompson should not petition for any more funds unless it was for an attorney to work towards Federal recognition. At that time, JC Thompson stopped asking for funds seemingly because those funds would be controlled by an attorney and not JC.
4. Although JC Thompson seemed to understand Federal Recognition was not possible, he continued to use the narrative with the MTIC. There are documents in hand and prepared for my upcoming public address that were authored by JC Thompson that acknowledge “Chicken Trotter” and Deveraux Jarrett Bell are not the name person and in that same document in which JC acknowledges that fact, a fact that essentially terminates the entire case for Federal recognition, he goes on, in that same document to instruct myself, the chair, to take the public stance that we will address this concern within the application for Federal Recognition that he already stated to me he did not intend to apply for. It seems towards the end of his life some of the sickness, medications, or perhaps the inability to continue to manage his own deceptions, JC would give contradictory information to me in that at times he would state Federal recognition was not possible and in other times he would instruct me that an application for Federal recognition be the thing that answers to all of the discrepancies in the MTIC narrative.
5. After JC Thompsons passing all the MTIC intellectual property in his possession passed to Jesse Thompson, son of JC Thompson, and to Barbara Thompson, JC’s widow. These documents include bank statements, bank logins, account logins, applications, pending applications, supposed historical documents, supposed community minutes, and more. Jesse and Barbara Thompson have publicly stated that they are in possession of these documents but when they have been requested to produce them for use by the MTIC they have given nothing but excuses up until recently when they finally just refused. The refusal to provide MTIC with the documentation belonging to MTIC devolved into the Thompson family stating that they simply did not have any documents. The community was presented with laughable excuses and drivel in all forms beginning with the most unbelievable and unacceptable stories of lighting strikes frying computers, storage units cleared out and moved, multiple storage units in various states, vast amounts of storage units being pillaged and items stolen by rogue pickup and delivery services, water damage, rats, storage facilities consolidating and moving the items without their permission and more. This was all stated publicly before the entire MTIC community in the Jesse Thompson friend group. It was a gross insult to the intelligence of the MTIC community, but it persists even to this present day. It seems very likely that a misappropriation of funds and possible misconduct with MTIC bank accounts and financials may be at the heart of the dread put forward by the Thompson family that anyone would ask to obtain and review the MTIC documents in their possession. Aside from financials, the Thompsons own words to the community in public forums have left you all to accept the fact that your personal and sensitive family documents, all your MTIC intellectual property, has been left to the mercy of water damage and rats and the Thompson family seemingly have no interest in retrieving any of it for the MTIC membership.
6. Jesse Thompson was placed as Deputy Chair of MTIC in an emergency order by me, the chair, Cheryl Giordano, and against the advice of his father JC Thompson. This fact is well known by me, Tanner Bonham, and others. This was supposed to give Jesse a chance to learn to lead. Jesse Thompsons position was essentially grandfathered in and was not to last past the next election. If he were to be deputy chair again, he would need to be elected. This mistake on my part, in putting Jesse Thompson into office without an election, has essentially brought the MTIC to the brink of extinction as a legal entity. I used my heart and not my head and I have brought so much trouble to the MTIC for that. I cannot begin to apologize to this community enough. I hope my efforts now will show I will do whatever it takes to right this wrong.
7. Jesse Thompson has seemingly used the position he was put in on good faith to log into his deceased father’s social media accounts and install himself as admin and controller of the MTIC’s most prolific tools of communication. Jesse Thompson has had no fear in censoring and banning members of the MTIC who stated anything on these platforms that he did not agree with or find acceptable. Given the items listed above there is no question why Jesse would be so afraid to let other members of the MTIC practice their free speech. This abuse of power is being done in the “Mount Tabor Indian Community” name as Jesse wields personal power to control the narrative of the whole community. He has gone as far as to ban me, the chair, from the group named for the very thing I am chair of. In my upcoming public address, I will be sharing written communications from Jesse which illustrates his feeling of being the prince and heir to MTIC and his absolute entitlement. The Facebook group and social media of the MTIC, the entire MTIC itself, seems to be something that Jesse feels belongs to him and as having been the property and legacy of his father. He has stated in writing that he intends to “give” MTIC to his children. Recently Barbara Thompson has posted publicly that the groups and MTIC belong to the JC Thompson estate. This effectively makes the MTIC not a community, not an organized government, but all of it, all of us, are simply the property of the Thompson family.
8. Jesse Thompson is recorded publicly in the last 90 days as stating the two contradictory facts that he is aware “Chicken Trotter” and Devereaux Jarrett Bell are not the same person but also that he plans to continue the narrative to the MTIC that it is possible to make a successful bid for federal recognition. This either shows the level of disconnect in how Jesse Thompson has no understanding about the process or requirements involved in a application for Federal Recognition or that he is outright lying. Add to this the fact that Jesse must be aware that there are not documents to support this narrative since he himself has recently stated to me and others publicly that there are no documents for him to bring forward after water, rats, and rogues. If Jesses intends to continue to push a narrative of Federal recognition the only reasonable question we can ask as a community is “How do you intend to do that with no Trotter/Bell connection and no documents?”
This is only the beginning of the investigation and only a portion of the information I have been given by others or personally uncovered. We are all tired and all beyond lies and excuses. I have put this information in your hands so you can perform your own investigations and get the best kind of information that exists in the world, the kind you discover and analyze for yourselves. My last acts as chair in this iteration and time in history of the MTIC will be to expose the corruption I have uncovered and to warn and arm the membership with enough information to point the community in the right direction in seeking justice for itself. I will be including information, documentation, screenshots, and more when I go public in the very near future. Until then I pray this community will start demanding better for itself than what has been exposed to by the Thompsons since their arrival on the scene. JC Thompson did a lot of great things for a lot of people. Sadly, it would seem there may have been a lot of self-interest involved inside of those blessings.
My final worss to you as chair, before I go public, and as you will not hear from me again until I go public, is that I know from my experiences with you all, my own life with you all, that we are a blessed gathering of beautiful people who share in the rich and proud history of our Native American ancestors. We are a community! We lived amongst each other and share many roots going back to the same histories, communal organizations, and in many cases the same family tree. We are beautiful, we are proud, and we are enough as we are! It seems from all the evidence I have gathered so far that where we find common histories are within the Texas Cherokees and Associated Bands, and in the counties of Smith, Rusk, and Gregg, where so many of our ancestors lived. That common heritage, in my opinion from facts I’ve reviewed while serving in the highest office in this community, has little to do with what were told we were by JC Thompson after he arrived on the scene in the 1990’s. JC Thompson has shown that it is very possible that his story is that he comes from a shaky background of unproven Native American ancestry, has been a part of controversial groups from the start, and after leaving the Northern Cherokee Nation seems to have headed south to start something akin to that controversial organization of his own. JC Thompson has seemingly taken our true roots and history and attempted to create an organization and dynasty for himself and his family at all our expense. We need to be thankful that this alleged evil has been made to be a great blessing in that it has brought us all together. We need to cut out the rot from our story and begin to grow life. That life can be a MTIC devoid of controversy, devoid of shame, and be a positive force and sense of pride for us all. Before we can even think about thriving, we must survive. Right now, survival will depend on asking the hard questions, excepting the hard truths, taking a stand against censorship within our community, and taking a stand against self-interest and tyranny. With the work I have done the last 6 months to try and handle this internally, and with all I’ve done to put together projects that gave us all so much hope, to address the communities concerns (all of which has been shut down by Jesse Thompson) and with my upcoming public address, I am doing all I can to serve this community and see us move forward into better and brighter days. I am doing all I can, and I ask you all to join me and do the same.
Cheryl Giordano, Chair
