President Nominates NIGC Chairman

Jonodeve Osceola Chaudhuri, a member since 2013 of the National Indian Gaming Commission, and a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, has been nominated by President Obama to be chairman of the commission.

A resident of Tempe, Arizona, he earned a BA from Dartmouth and a law degree from Cornell. He clerked for two appellate court judges before joining the Phoenix law firm of Snell & Wilmer, where he worked on Indian law, business, finance and commercial litigation.

Chaudhuri formed his own law firm in 2006, and about the same time began sitting as a judge in Native American courts. He has been an appellate judge of on the Muscogee Nation Supreme Court and San Manuel Mission Band appellate court as well as a judge for Puyallup Tribe.