General > Frauds
Phil Landis & Nemenhah Band, an Oklehueva or ONAC chapter
NanticokePiney:
--- Quote from: Superdog on May 16, 2009, 01:28:53 am ---The wheatdogg blog listed above got an interesting comment today from the son of someone defrauded tragically by Landis...
Here's some excerpts...the rest of the letter is there...comment #9
From the wheatdogg blog:
http://www.computernewbie.info/wheatdogg/2009/05/11/a-sad-curious-tale-of-rampant-duplicity-and-stupidity/
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galigo:
May 15th, 2009 at 4:55 pm
My mother died because she followed his healing advice instead of receiving medical treatment. Here is a copy of an email I sent the chief. cloudpiler@nemenhah.org
Phil Landis (AKA Cloudpiler),
Thanks to all the publicity you’re receiving from this Daniel Hauser case, I finally caught up to you. I’m sure you’ve wanted to know how things ended up with my mother, Richelle, your neighbor at Parks Place, Hideaway Valley, UT.
If your memory needs refreshed, she had uterine cancer, which is 75% to 95% survivable with appropriate (medical) treatment.
However, you advised her to use your alternative healing methods, which she did.
As you were aware, she became sicker and sicker, as she continued to do what you advised her to do. When I came to visit her, you would disappear.
When she became so sick that she needed 24 hour care, my wife and I brought her to our home in Idaho. Here, we cared for her and loved her until she died.
...................................
I wonder how many other people have died because of what you do.
Does it bother you?
Here’s something you should know: My wife and my dad both had cancer at the same time as my mother. Weird, huh. The thing is, my wife and my dad are still here. Cured by surgery. Perfectly healthy now.
I miss my mom, and every time I think of her slow, painful, rotting, stinking death my heart breaks all over again.
You are not only a fraud, chief, you’re a killer.
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end of quoted material
Heartbreaking and a clear example of how these guys do more harm than just steal money.....
Superdog
--- End quote ---
This crap should be enough to put Landis in jail for a long time! But it's not, and that's the saddest part of it.........
educatedindian:
It's gotten quite a lot of attention. CNN, NPR, and the AP all asked me for comment, along with some anti cult groups. And this article got on an academic listserv. I bolded a couple points.
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http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/MO_FORCED_CHEMO_CHURCH_MOOL-?SITE=MOMAR&SECTION=STATE&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
May 22, 5:19 PM EDT
Nemenhah leader defends group
By MARIA SUDEKUM FISHER
Associated Press Writer
STOCKTON, Mo. (AP) -- Phillip "Cloudpiler" Landis was raised Mormon in western Washington and didn't think too much about what he considers his American Indian heritage until he went to prison.
"What better place to have to sit and reflect upon what motivates you," he says.
Landis now leads the Nemenhah Band, an Internet-base group recently thrown into the spotlight when one of its far-flung members fled with her cancer-stricken son to avoid chemotherapy.
Landis, 47, has never met Colleen Hauser or 13-year-old Daniel, and urges them to return home. But he supports the Hausers' decision to defy the recommendations of doctors, who "may be the high priests of the medical religion, but who are spiritually bankrupt."
The attention garnered for Landis has some in the field of alternative and complementary medicine concerned. American Indian groups also have expressed misgivings about Landis.
"A lot of people are attaching themselves to the alternative medicine field," said Lorenzo Cohen, director of the Integrative Medicine Program at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. "It does give quote-unquote alternative medicine a bad name."
Cohen said most people seeking alternative therapies usually use them in combination with conventional therapies, like chemotherapy, and that the Hauser case "was particularly tragic" because Daniel has a "very curable pediatric cancer."
Steven Moore, senior attorney for the Native American Rights Fund in Boulder, Colo., was critical of Landis and his group.
"There are a lot of sham artists around like these guys, and they ultimately disrespect Indian people and Indian nations and Indian organizations like the Native American Church," Moore said.
Landis said his group is a healing-based religion open to people from "all walks of life, and all tribes, nations, kindreds and tongues ... who set their foot on the healing path."
Colleen Hauser joined the Nemenhah a few months ago, presumably paying the $250 suggested fee as her son dealt with cancer, which is "not inconsistent with how a lot of our members join," Landis said.
"They're thrown into a medical situation, the medical hierarchy hasn't too many real answers for them, and they begin to search."
On its Web site, the group suggests paying the initial fee, then $100 a year, plus "regular, monthly offerings." The Web site does not appear to espouse any particular type of alternative therapy.
Its rituals include sweat lodges, sacred breaths and baptism, Landis said, but he does not advocate the use of peyote, something that is used by the Native American Church of North America. He said the Nemenhah Band is an affiliate of another group called the Native American Church, and Moore said that Landis does not have "any affiliation with a legitimate, valid, Native American Church chapter or organization anywhere in the United States."
The Nemenhah Band came together about 10 years ago in central Utah by a group of women who felt they had a calling, Landis said. He was elected "principle medicine chief" in part because of his claim to be related to Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce, he said.
But Julie Kane, managing attorney for the Nez Perce in Idaho, said Landis is not Nez Perce and the tribe asked him to stop using references to the Nez Perce a few years ago.
"He is not at all Nez Perce. He is not even a descendant," Kane said.
Colleen Hauser left Minnesota on Monday with Daniel, who has Hodgkins' lymphoma, a highly curable cancer when treated with chemotherapy and radiation. The Hausers preferred alternative remedies, and Daniel and his mother fled a day before a court hearing that could have resulted in a judge ordering chemotherapy.
The Hausers, who are not American Indian, were seen in Southern California on Tuesday, and were thought to be in Mexico. Authorities said Friday that Interpol had joined in the search.
While Hauser leads authorities on an international search, Landis has been left answering questions about the Nemenhah.
"We can support her desire to seek alternative medicine," he said. "But we cannot support her committing a felony."
He speaks freely about his past and his decision to move from Utah last year to southern Missouri when his probation ended after serving several months in prison on fraud charges.
"Trees brought us here," he said, throwing his arms open wide. "We are not a desert family."
Landis, his wife and four children started in Weaubleau, population about 500. The family has since moved about 30 miles away to land north of Stockton, a southwest Missouri town of about 2,000 where Landis says he is building a "lodge" for his family and for the Nemenhah Band, which he claims has about 4,000 members. He doesn't say where that land is exactly, and meets reporters at picnic tables in a park in the center of Stockton.
He said western medicine has its place, telling about a time when his daughter knelt on a nail that went under her kneecap. The nail came out, Landis said, but there was no way to see what, if any, damage had been done. Landis did what many parents would do: He took his child to the hospital and had her knee X-rayed. Also, she had a tetanus shot.
"Our main tenet is: `First, do no harm,' not, `First do nothing,'" he said.
Landis said he lost faith in most traditional medicine after a bout with bubonic plague, a broken back and cancer, which he said disappeared thanks to a tea-like concoction made from a mushroom. He still drinks the mushroom tea daily, he said, 15 years after his diagnosis.
He refers to Daniel Hauser as a youth minister and says he wants the Hausers to return.
"The fear was so great that she broke," Landis said of Colleen Hauser. "But it pales in comparison to what she and her family will go through if she goes to jail. I've been there; I know what she'd go through."
educatedindian:
This is Landis's criminal record, including for "theft by confidence game" and "deceptive practices." His record is extremely recent. The guy was still on parole in 2007 while he was leading Nemenhah.
Repost widely pls.
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Idaho Department of Corrections:
Name: PHILLIP REID LANDIS
Aliases: PHILLIP REID LANDIS, PHILLIP LANDIS
State of Origin: Idaho
DOC Number: 66996
Party Status: RELEASED
DOB: xx/xx/1961
Race: WHITE
Sex: Male
Eyes: BLUE
Height: 6' 01"
Weight: 208
Offenses:
Case Number: CR-00-2440
Offense: GRAND THEFT Sentence Date: 11/6/2002
Case Number: CR00-2440
Offense: GRAND THEFT Sentence Date: 7/2/2002
Parole/Probations:
Start Date: 12/4/2002 Actual End Date: 12/13/2007
Status: INACTIVE
Prison Inmate Records:
Latest Admission Date: 7/2/2002
Status: INACTIVE
Montana Department of Corrections:
Name: PHILLIP REID LANDIS
SSN: xxx-xx-xxxx
Aliases: PHILLIP REID LANDIS
State of Origin: Montana
DOC Number: 45958
Party Status: INTERSTATE COMPACT
DOB: xx/xx/1961
Race: WHITE
Sex: Male
Height: 6' 01"
Weight: 195
Offenses:
Offense Date: 8/1/1997 Convicted County: LINCOLN
Offense: THEFT Sentence Date: 1/24/2000
Offense Date: 8/1/1997 Convicted County: LINCOLN
Offense: DECEPTIVE PRACTICES Sentence Date: 1/24/2000
Parole/Probations:
[None Found]
Prison Inmate Records:
Status: ACTIVE_INMATE
Utah Department of Corrections:
Name: PHILLIP RIED LANDIS
SSN: xxx-xx-xxxx
Aliases: PHILLIP RIED LANDIS
State of Origin: Utah
DOC Number: 139065
DOB: xx/xx/1961
Race: CAUCASIAN
Sex: Male
Eyes: BLUE
Height: 6' 01"
Weight: 195
Offenses:
Case Number: CR-00-2440
Offense: THEFT BY CONFIDENCE GAME Sentence Date: 1/24/2000
Case Number: DC-99-25
Offense: THEFT
Case Number: DC-99-25
Offense: DECEPTIVE BUSINESS PRAC
Case Number: DC99-24
Offense: THEFT Sentence Date: 1/23/2001
Parole/Probations:
Start Date: 4/12/2000 Actual End Date: 11/14/2000
Status: DISCHARGED County: PROVO A P & P
Start Date: 1/23/2001 Actual End Date: 7/8/2002
Status: DISCHARGED County: RICHFIELD AP&P
Start Date: 1/27/2003 Actual End Date: 11/19/2007
Status: DISCHARGED County: RICHFIELD AP&P
Prison Inmate Records:
[None Found]
educatedindian:
There's an audio interview with a professor calling the group plastic shamans.
http://www.hereandnow.org/2009/05/rundown-522/
http://www.hereandnow.org/2009/05/rundown-522/#3
http://www.uiowa.edu/~religion/pesantubbecv.htm
The people at snopes.com have been using us a resources in their discussion.
http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?t=45794&page=4
Good news, the boy is no longer in hiding, getting treatment and getting better.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31372774/ns/health-cancer/
debbieredbear:
I noticed that many news casts and newspapers are now saying "Native American inspired." That is good. I know I protested when I heard someone say it was native.
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