A member of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe Indians in Minnesota has been awarded nearly $4.3 million in tribal court.

Cody St. John, 26, was attacked on the reservation in February 2006. He was severely beaten and left outside in below-zero temperatures because he refused to join the Vice Lords gang.

"Gang activity up on the reservation has been a chronic problem for years. The increasing violence up there has gotten to a point where [St. John] said we've just got to do something," attorney Patrick Noaker told The Minneapolis Star Tribune.

St. John did something -- he sued his attacker, Keith Wayne Reynolds, 24, who pleaded guilty to third-degree assault and served a year and one day in jail for the crime. The tribe's court awarded him $1.038 million for past and future physical injuries and medical bills, $250,000 for mental injury and $3 million in punitive damages, the paper reported.

Noaker said St. John probably won't ever recover the full amount but noted that the tribe could probably garnish Reynolds' per capita payment.

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Mille Lacs Tribal Court awards $4.2M in beating case (The Minneapolis Star Tribune 6/16)