Topeka ? An attorney for the Wyandotte Nation of Oklahoma asked a federal judge again Monday to force the state to return cash and gambling machines seized when officials shut down a tribal casino in downtown Kansas City, Kan.

The tribe also asked U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson to prevent the state from asserting authority over the casino site. The state raided the casino in April, eight months after the tribe opened it.

An attorney for the state argued that returning the seized assets — about $300,000 in cash and 150 electronic machines — would permit the Wyandotte Nation to reopen an unregulated casino.

Robinson had a hearing Monday on the tribe’s request and said from the bench that she would issue a ruling later. The Wyandotte Nation is seeking an injunction against the state that would remain in effect until the judge considers a lawsuit the Wyandotte Nation filed against Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, Atty. Gen. Phill Kline and six other state and local officials.

Until she rules, Robinson said, the current situation must remain in place — the tribe cannot operate a casino, but the state also cannot claim any jurisdiction over the casino site.

Conly Schulte, an Omaha, Neb., attorney representing the tribe, described the April raid on the casino as an invasion of American Indian land and said it would be like Oklahoma sending National Guard soldiers to Topeka to seize property and arrest Kansas legislators.

“It is Indian land. The state is precluded from exercising jurisdiction,” Schulte told Robinson. “Clearly, the tribe’s sovereignty is being challenged here.”

But Steven Alexander, an assistant Kansas attorney general, told Robinson the tribe violated a 1996 federal appeals court ruling by opening the 7th Street Casino in August 2003. He said the federal government seemed “impotent” to prevent the tribe from operating a casino, leaving the state to step in.

“There’s no reason to expect that the tribe is going to police itself,” Alexander said. “The whole problem with this case is that the Wyandotte tribe commenced gaming when it had no authority.”

Schulte said Alexander was mischaracterizing the 1996 court order. Also, he said, if Robinson issues the order, the tribe still will need the permission of the National Indian Gaming Commission before it can reopen its casino.

As for the tribe not policing itself, Schulte said such an argument was “offensive.”

After the tribe filed its lawsuit in April, it sought an immediate order to compel the state to return the seized assets, which are worth about $1 million. Robinson declined to issue such an order.

The hearing Monday was the latest episode in a drawn out legal battle over the Wyandotte Nation’s efforts to operate casino gambling in Kansas despite the opposition from state officials and four other tribes that have their own casinos.

Although the Wyandottes’ headquarters are in northeast Oklahoma, the tribe has some Kansas roots. In the 1840s, after the tribe gave up land in Michigan and Ohio to the federal government, members settled in what is now the Kansas City area. A decade later, the federal government allowed members of the tribe to become U.S. citizens or retain their tribal affiliation and move to present-day Oklahoma, which some did.