The_Info_Web/10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Arthur Welmas.md

category	tags	summary	updated
Other	Person PROMIS	Tribal Chairman of the Cabazon Band of Mission Indians involved in the Cabazon/Wackenhut Joint Venture.	2026-10-09

Arthur Welmas was the Tribal Chairman of the Cabazon Indian Reservation. He signed a letter on behalf of Jimmy Hughes to the Army Discharge Review Board, requesting Hughes' military record to obtain security clearances for his work in the Cabazon/Wackenhut Corporation Joint Venture.¹

The 1993 report of Judge Nicholas J. Bua for the Department of Justice describes Welmas as Tribal Chairman in 1981 and states that he signed the April 1981 joint venture agreement with Wackenhut for the Cabazon Security Corporation, with Robert Frye signing for Wackenhut, and that the non-Indian tribal administrator Dr. John Philip Nichols managed the tribe's business affairs.²

On or about September 25, 1980, an agreement for the management of the Cabazon Indian Casino cardroom by Rocco Zangari was signed by Welmas as chairman of the Cabazon Band. The appellate panel found that the agreement appears to have been only between Zangari and PN Associates, Inc., a Delaware corporation, and that Welmas also signed it. The panel did not decide whether the agreement bound the casino.³

Welmas signed letters as "President." On March 24, 1982, a letter on the stationery of the Cabazon Gas and Oil Corporation over his name, addressed to a Michael McClure of Hercules Research Corp., Hercules, California, with copies to Marshall Riconosciuto and Michael Riconosciuto, states that Nichols "is very impressed with your competence."⁴ A letter over his name dated May 1 (year not printed), headed "CABAZON INDIAN SECURITY /WSI JOINT VENTURE," Indio, to La France Specialties of San Diego, says that a facility on a fifteen-acre site set aside by the reservation was planned, that the venture planned to begin manufacturing "a new assault weapon, which would have unique characteristics, including an adjustable cycle rate of fire and a laser sighting system," and that all sales would be sought only through sources acceptable to the State Department.⁵ The names that follow his signature on that letter are Peter Zokosky, Bob Frye, Dr. Myron S. Malkin, Colonel Glade Flake, John James, Bruce James, John Paul Nichols and Wayne Reeder. A Dr. Myron S. Malkin, director of the NASA Space Shuttle program, sat on the board of NUSAC, Inc., the nuclear safeguards consultancy bought by the Wackenhut Corporation in 1978. Whether he is the Dr. Myron Malkin named in the letter is not established.⁵⁶

Robert Chasen, Executive Vice President of Wackenhut Corporation, felt an affinity with Welmas due to his wife being part Cherokee. Chasen sympathized with the Cabazons' situation and expressed a desire to protect them, suggesting he may have done so by shutting down the Wackenhut Corporation's biological virus and vaccine development proposal to the Army on the Cabazon reservation.¹

After a witness identified only as "Marty" told the Senate Special Committee on Investigations of the Select Committee on Indian Affairs on February 8, 1989 that the Cabazon reservation was involved with organized crime, Welmas wrote to the committee that the Cabazon Band "categorically denies" any connection with organized crime. He called the testimony "unsubstantiated hearsay" and wrote that it made evident that Marty "has no first-hand knowledge whatsoever of the history or the current operation of our bingo parlor or card room." He added that the witness had wrongly called the Cabazon reservation a "rancheria."⁷

A March 30, 1992 article in the Washington Business Journal quotes Welmas, then former chairman of the Cabazon Band, as saying that Earl Brian had been seen on the reservation and that Brian's name was frequently mentioned by Michael Riconosciuto and Dr. John Nichols. Welmas is quoted: "Brian must have been involved. His name was mentioned and discussed on a daily basis." The House Judiciary Committee cites the article and records that the committee was "not in a position to make findings of fact" on Brian's role.⁸

Footnotes

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1. Seymour, Cheri. The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro’s Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal. First Edition. TrineDay, 2010. ↩︎

2. United States Department of Justice, Office of Professional Responsibility, report of Judge Nicholas J. Bua on the INSLAW matter (1993), section on the Wackenhut-Cabazon joint venture, printed pp. 55 to 56. Official finding. https://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/nsa/DOJ-OIP-INSLAW_1993.pdf ↩︎

3. Zangari v. Cabazon Indian Casino (In re Cabazon Indian Casino), 35 B.R. 124 (B.A.P. 9th Cir. December 29, 1983), BAP No. CC-82-1578-GVAb. https://static.case.law/br/35/cases/0124-01.json ↩︎

4. Arthur Welmas, letter dated March 24, 1982, Danny Casolaro papers, folder "Wackenhut-Correspondence." The scan text prints the addressee as "Mr. Michael McClure, Hercules Research Corp." https://archive.org/details/casolaro-notebooks. ↩︎

5. Arthur Welmas, letter dated May 1 to La France Specialties, Danny Casolaro papers, folder "Wackenhut-Correspondence"; letterhead headed "CABAZON INDIAN SECURITY /WSI JOINT VENTURE," 83-180 Requa Avenue, Indio, California. ↩︎

6. Nuclear Materials Management (Journal of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management), vol. 8, no. 4 (Winter 1979-1980), item on the election of Brian J. L. Berry to the NUSAC board ("Besides Dr. Lumb, the other members are Dr. Myron S. Malkin, Director of NASA's Space Shuttle Program"). https://resources.inmm.org/system/files/jnmm/vol_08/V-8_4.pdf ↩︎

7. The Press-Enterprise (Riverside, California), February 11, 1989, "Indians deny link to crime," by David Boyles. Reprinted in FBI Los Angeles file 183A-LA-1746, Section 1, https://archive.org/details/JohnPhilipNichols ↩︎

8. U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary, The INSLAW Affair, H. Rept. 102-857 (September 10, 1992), notes 218 to 222, citing Washington Business Journal, March 30, 1992. https://archive.org/details/InslawAffairInvestigativeReport ↩︎