111 Criminal Charges Filed Against Navajo Leader

Suspended Navajo Tribal Chairman Peter MacDonald was accused of 111 criminal charges Wednesday, including bribery, fraud, conspiracy and elections violations while he led the nation’s largest Indian tribe.

Special prosecutors hired by the Tribal Council filed a five-part complaint in Navajo District Court in Window Rock, the tribal capital, after a four-hour review of the charges by Judge Robert Yazzie.

“They are the same old laundry that they’ve been hanging out for the last year and a half,” MacDonald told the Associated Press after learning of the specific charges.

One complaint charges MacDonald with 27 counts of bribery, fraud, ethics violations and conspiracy in the tribe’s $33.4-million purchase of the Big Boquillas Ranch in northern Arizona in July, 1987.

Allegations that MacDonald profited from the ranch purchase emerged in U.S. Senate subcommittee testimony earlier this year.

A second complaint alleges 25 violations of the Navajo election law, including charges that MacDonald accepted $115,500 in undocumented cash and services from non-Indians and corporations.

A third complaint charges MacDonald with 59 counts of bribery, extortion, fraud, ethics violations and conspiracy in allegedly fraudulent consultant contracts that he purportedly entered into with outside businesses from November, 1986, through 1989.

MacDonald’s son, Peter (Rocky) MacDonald Jr., is charged with conspiracy in the ranch purchase in a fourth complaint, and tribal Vice Chairman Johnny R. Thompson is accused of ethics violations in the fifth.