The Navajos' suspended chairman has been charged with taking more than $400,000 in bribes and kickbacks while leading the nation's largest Indian tribe. He promised to "stand up and fight" the allegations.
A 111-count criminal complaint filed Wednesday in Navajo Tribal Court also includes charges of fraud, conspiracy and elections violations against the suspended chairman, Peter MacDonald, who is under investigation by a special U.S. Senate committee.Special prosecutors hired by the tribal council filed a five-part complaint in the Window Rock court against MacDonald, his son and the tribe's suspended vice chairman.
One complaint charges MacDonald with 27 counts of bribery, fraud, ethics violations and conspiracy in the tribe's purchase of the Big Boquillas Ranch in northern Arizona in July 1987.
A second complaint alleges 25 violations of the Navajo election law, including charges that the elder MacDonald accepted $115,500 in undocumented cash and service contributions from non-Indians and corporations.
A third charges him with 59 counts of bribery, extortion, fraud, ethics violations and conspiracy in alleged fradulent consultant contracts MacDonald purportedly entered into with outside businesses from November 1986 through 1989. Prosecutors allege he pocketed more than $300,000.
MacDonald's son Peter "Rocky" MacDonald Jr. is charged with conspiracy in the ranch purchase in a fourth complaint and suspended Vice Chairman Johnny R. Thompson is accused of ethics violations in a fifth.
The elder MacDonald said the charges were only a rehash of allegations that surfaced during last winter's U.S. Senate hearings.
"Those lazy, good-for-nothing lawyers" spent thousands of dollars to come up with nothing more than "allegations using the testimony of the Senate hearings," he said. The 60-year-old MacDonald, who was put on paid administrative leave in February, said he had no plans to resign.
"There's no reason to give up as long as I'm alive and I'm breathing," he said. "The cause is valid in terms of these people (supporters), and knowing what is happening to Indian nations - what has happened to the Navajo - it affects my children and my grandchildren, and I'll continue to stand up and fight."
Tribal Interim Chairman Leonard Haskie, meanwhile, said he asked the federal government to speed up its investigation of allegations that the elder MacDonald shared in the $7.2 million profit turned by Tracey Oil and Gas Co. of Scottsdale, which bought the Big Boquillas from Tenneco West for $26.2 million and sold it to the Navajos less than 24 hours later for $33.4 million.
The tribe is suing MacDonald and others for $24 million in damages in the ranch purchase.