Former Seneca Nation Councillor Sue Abrams is filing a temporary restraining order against the Seneca Nation in the nation’s peacemaker’s court to stop the more than $540 million in disputed compact payments to New York state.

Abrams has filed the temporary restraining order on behalf of the Seneca people opposed to making the payments. Abrams and some 300 enrolled Seneca Nation members gathered for two community meetings this week voicing their opposition to President Matt Pagels’ settlement agreement with the state.

“The settlement agreement was not formally approved by Council resolution in either a convened special or regular session of Council, and is an illegal action per Article 22 of the Seneca Nation Constitution,” said Abrams. “Matt Pagels acted unilaterally without the legal consent of a Council authorization, he violated the Seneca Nation Constitution, and acted in defiance of the people.”

Abrams temporary restraining order comes after Pagels announced the agreement with the state earlier this month regarding the compact payments. The exact amount has not yet been revealed, but the amount owed the state stood at around $450 million as of last fall. That funding will be split among the state and the Western New York communities in and near where the tribe operates three casinos.

In 2002, the tribal nation and the state agreed to a 21-year gaming compact. That agreement included a 14-year base deal with the sovereign tribal nation agreeing to give the state a share of its revenue from its casinos in Buffalo, Niagara Falls and Salamanca.

At the Thursday meeting on the Cattaraugus territory, Abrams said more than 200 people expressed their opposition to the president’s illegal action and called upon the Council to rescind the agreement and stop payments.

Following a 2019 arbitration ruling that favored the state, the Seneca Nation, at the urging of the Seneca people, continued to fight the case in the courts and on the federal level. On Dec. 14, Judge William Skretny denied the Nation’s Rule 60 (b) motion to vacate. The Nation had been engaged in communications with the Department of the Interior and the National Indian Gaming Commission to review the legality of the payments and the Compact itself, which was never formally approved by the Secretary of the Interior.

“The president and the council is ill-advised by their attorneys. The Nation has not exhausted all possible federal remedies and must continue to fight for the Seneca people,” said Abrams. “This temporary restraining order is being filed to stop the payments to the state. I am fighting for the people of the Seneca Nation, since President Pagels has let the Seneca people down.”