Hartford (AP) — A judge has rejected a challenge of the hiring of a former Mashantucket Pequot tribal official with a criminal record for a management job at the tribe's Foxwoods Resort Casino, ruling it was up to the casino to determine the best candidate.

The former tribal councilor, Steven Thomas, won the personnel position at the country's largest casino in December 2013 as he was awaiting sentencing for stealing $177,000 from the tribe.

The court challenge offered a glimpse of strife inside the tribe that owns and operates Foxwoods on its tiny reservation in southeast Connecticut.

Another former tribal councilor, Charlene Jones, said in her lawsuit that she was passed over for the position Thomas received despite having stronger qualifications. She argued Thomas should not have been eligible because of his criminal conviction.

Tribal members are required be in "good standing" in order to be hired under the law that gives preference for jobs to Pequots. In court last December, the director of the Mashantucket Employee Rights Office told the judge that Thomas met the threshold set by the tribe's Elders Council because he was not banished at the time he received the job.

In his ruling last week, Judge Edward O'Connell granted the request from the employee rights office to dismiss the suit. He said the Elders Council had jurisdiction to determine who is in good standing and the employer is the only entity authorized to weigh applicants' qualifications.

Jones said she is likely to appeal the ruling.

"Personally, it's unbelievable," she said. "It makes no logical sense."

Thomas was convicted of theft after admitting that he misapplied the money by falsifying time cards in 2007, when he was assistant director of the tribe's natural resources department. A judge spared him prison time at sentencing, saying she was impressed by his reform before the investigation.