Adultery, murder try had role in kidnapping
Police: More arrests likely
S.J. Ludescher
Staff Writer
ALBUQUERQUE — One of the men charged here Thursday with kidnapping
Gallup Indian trader Hamad "Jim" Rashid said robbery was
not the sole reason Rashid was abducted.
Gilberto Lupercio Hurtado, 20, told investigators he agreed to kidnap
Rashid because he was told Rashid was sleeping with the wife of one
of the other kidnappers.
However, Rashid told an Albuquerque news station that a contract was
out on his life and the abductors were going to kill him. Rashid said
he offered them a half million dollars to change their plans.
At a detention hearing today in Albuquerque, FBI agents testified
they had no concrete information about adultery being involved.
The complaints also said the woman charged in the kidnapping Mireya
Davila, 19 told investigators she was under the impression the four
were abducting Rashid because he had failed to pay a debt.
Hurtado and Davila, along with two other men, were charged in U.S.
District Court in Albuquerque Thursday in the kidnap, assault, robbery
and extortion of Rashid, 58, on Tuesday night.
The four also have been charged with interference with interstate
commerce with threats and violence.
More arrests are likely, FBI Agent Doug Beldon said
Thursday night.
The Independent tried repeatedly to reach the bruised
and scraped Rashid Thursday at his workplace but could not reach him.
A detention and preliminary hearing for Davila, Hurtado, Efrain Reyes
(alias Miguel Israel), 32, and Jesus Ernesto Serrano-Cerda, 33, all
of Colorado, was held this morning in Albuquerque in front of U.S.
District Court Judge William W. Deaton.
Reyes, who was also arrested in Santa Fe in connection with the incident,
did not appear before the judge Thursday. Beldon said Reyes' alias
of Miguel Israel may have delayed that defendant's appearance because
of "identification issues."
Night of terror
According to the filed complaints, Rashid arrived at Sky City Casino
in Acoma about 9:30 p.m. Monday. On his way into the casino, he was
approached by four Hispanic males, one of whom was wearing a ski mask.
The man showed a firearm to Rashid and forced him into the back seat
of his vehicle.
In testimony today, the FBI said the men discharged a firearm next
to his head.
The men took Rashid to an undisclosed location on the Acoma Indian
Reservation, where he was beaten.
"They pistol-whipped the fool out of him at the casino, and then
they put him in their vehicle and drove him back to Gallup,"
Beldon said.
Semi-automatic pistols and at least one assault rifle were used in
the abduction.
The men drove Rashid to the Pow Wow Indian Jewelry Store on West Highway
66, which he owns, where they forced him to open his safe, threatening
to kill him if he didn't cooperate. He removed between $156,000 and
$160,000 from the safe and two firearms, according to the complaint.
Next, the men took Rashid to El Dorado Restaurant, which he also owns,
and forced him to open that safe, giving his assailants between $10,000
and $15,000.
They again threatened him with death if he didn't cooperate.
The complaint doesn't go into detail, but says at some
point after he opened the restaurant's safe and was being taken back
to the Indian jewelry store less than a block away, he managed to
escape on foot. FBI reports indicated he made his way to a nearby
lounge.
Police on trail
Rashid contacted the Gallup Police Department around 1:30 a.m. and
an FBI agent picked him up at Rebohoth McKinley Christian Hospital.
According to the complaint, when law enforcement officers arrived,
Rashid provided them with a description of the vehicle driven by the
assailants. Police didn't have far to look. The vehicle was still
parked in El Dorado's lot, and one of the alleged kidnappers, Serrano,
was in the car and was arrested.
Records from the cell phone in that car led police to addresses in
Santa Fe.
The complaint said Serrano admitted his participation in crimes against
Rashid during an interview with police. Serrano told police he had
been staying at the Super 8 Motel.
Police set up a surveillance of the room and around 8 a.m. spotted
Hurtado leaving, which led to the arrest of the second suspect.
Hurtado also confessed, saying he had traveled from Colorado to Gallup
with Serrano, Israel and Davila "for the purpose of abducting
and beating Rashid," the complaint stated.
"Hurtado told investigators Israel told him they
were abducting Rashid because Rashid was sleeping with Israel's wife,"
the complaint stated.
Serrano was then interviewed again by police. Serrano then claimed
that Israel told him Rashid was "loaded and that they were going
to abduct and rob him."
Serrano also told investigators they had dropped off Davila in Santa
Fe at her sister's home with the understanding she would drive to
Gallup in her sister's car and meet them. Davila was located at that
address.
When questioned, Davila told investigators Israel was staying at the
Radisson Hotel in Santa Fe, waiting to go with her to Gallup.
A surveillance team was dispatched to the hotel and
subsequently picked up Israel when he left his hotel room.
When Davila was interviewed, she told investigators
she had followed a vehicle matching the description of Rashid's truck
to the casino. She said it was her understanding the four were abducting
him for failure to pay a debt.
Davila said she followed the truck into the desert.
"Israel told Davila to leave and come back in 15 minutes and
she (then) followed the truck to a warehouse where she waited at the
back door. After waiting for several minutes, Israel exited the building
and loaded a duffel bag into the back of her car."
Davila said they spent that night in a motel in Gallup
and drove to Santa Fe in the morning.
Danger to community
The court appointed public counsel for all defendants.
The U.S. Attorney's office has asked the kidnappers be incarcerated
until the hearing since "they are a danger to the community and
pose a substantial risk of nonappearance."
Rashid won slot machine jackpots worth $6.3 million last May and $1.9
million last July at Sky City Casino. The $6.3 million jackpot on
a Wheel of Fortune MegaJackpot machine was the largest ever in a New
Mexico casino.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
| Top |
Mardi's owners critical of city
Woes blamed on downtown
Bill Donovan
Staff Writer
GALLUP — The owners of Fat Mardi's Restaurant,
which closed this past Christmas Eve after a year of operation, blame
problems in the downtown area for their business's demise.
"I think a number of our customers felt the downtown
area was unsafe at night," said Bob Becker, who along with his
wife, Mardi, also operate Mardi's Restaurant in Yah-Ta-Hey.
While the lack of parking contributed to the problems
of Fat Mardi's and other businesses in the downtown area, Becker said
he also blamed drunks and skateboarders.
"We had a lot of panhandlers who would come right into the restaurant,"
he said. "This type of atmosphere was not very conducive to running
a business."
Customers also complained about the skateboarders who
congregated in the walkway just east of the El Morro Theatre and across
from Fat Mardi's, even though there were signs prohibiting skateboarders.
"People just didn't want to enter the walkway," he said,
adding that his customers said they were afraid of being hassled by
the skateboarders.
He said he would have liked to have seen more police
in the area and a crackdown on the skateboarders. He and others in
the downtown area had asked for more police protection, he said, but
it never seemed to happen.
Gallup Police Chief Danny Ross said he strongly disagreed with the
impression promoted by Becker that downtown Gallup was unsafe.
"I'm sorry to see Fat Mardi's close, but I think
the problem they had was not enough customers," he said. He added
that it was "not fair to blame Gallup for their problems."
The police department provides regular patrols through
downtown, he said. During summer months, police officers on bikes
patrol the area, in part to assure tourists that they are safe.
He said he thinks the downtown area is also safe the
rest of the year, but the police are less visible when students are
in school.
That's because police have to assign a bigger part of their manpower
to working with the schools. Because of the level of manpower available
in the police budget, downtown patrols have to be curtailed when the
summer ends.
He agrees that Gallup has not totally eradicated the problems of street
people who have no place to stay and who spend a lot of their time
drinking liquor. But anyone who has worked or operated a store downtown
for more than a few years would admit it's a lot better now than it
was in the past, he said.
"A few years ago, we had people sleeping in the
doorways," Ross said.
He stressed that drunks are not tolerated. If there
is a complaint, he said, a police vehicle will be sent to take care
of problems that downtown merchants may have with drunks or anyone
else causing a problem.
That also includes skateboarders.
"We have had to deal with skateboarders in that
area at times. We have even given some citations out," he said.
But to say that the downtown is unsafe because of a
few teens in the area with skateboards is not accurate. "We have
not had any reports that anyone has been harassed or beaten up by
a skateboarder," he said.
As for the parking problem, he said that is something
people will have to get used to because it's not going to change,
at least not anytime soon.
There are several parking lots available to people who
want to shop downtown, but it means that people will have to walk
a block or two. "People just don't seem to want to walk anymore,"
he said.
Becker now thinks the restaurant was doomed when he
and his wife decided to locate it downtown.
"We would have had a better chance of survival if it had been
located in a place where people could have parked their car and walked
a little ways to the entrance and where they felt safe," he said.
| Top |
How many reps?
Voters may pick number of delegates
Jim Maniaci
Diné Bureau
WINDOW ROCK — The Navajo Nation Council is once again being asked
to let the Navajo people decide just how large the council membership
should be.
The latest request came Thursday from the Navajo Board of Election
Supervisors, which wants the council to give Navajo voters a choice
of seven sizes, ranging from a low of 24 to a high of 110 one for
each chapter when they go to the polls in May.
The two sizes receiving the most votes in the primary would then graduate
to August's general election. Both elections will be held in conjunction
with chapter and other races so it won't cost the tribe anything extra
to hold the referendum.
Council Delegate Edison Wauneka presented the two-step resolution
to the elections board as the fastest and most complete way to let
the largest number of people resolve the long-standing complaint that
the council's huge size makes it too cumbersome.
Wauneka has been advocating the reduction of the council's present
size of 88 since he was chairman of the election board in the early
1990s.
During his tenure on the board, the election office held a series
of public hearings during which tribal members were asked what size
they would like the council to be.
The No. 1 choice was 110, which reflected the sentiment of many tribal
members that having a council delegate represent more than one chapter
didn't work. The winner usually favored his own chapter over other
chapters.
Coming in second in that unofficial poll was 44, which would reduce
the current council by half.
Several attempts were made in 1997 and 1998 to get the council to
address the question of its size or to approve a referendum, but all
attempts failed. At that time, the argument was that a smaller council
would save the tribal government millions of dollars in salaries,
per diem and other benefits.
Attorney Lucy Simpson of the Office of Legislative Services explained
to the board that Navajo law requires any change in the size of the
council to be approved by voters. And the only vehicle available is
a referendum.
To get a referendum placed on the ballot, someone, such as Wauneka,
has to persuade the council to do it or have 30,000 of the approximately
100,000 registered Navajo voters sign a petition placing the matter
on the ballot, Simpson said.
Wauneka said the latter approach is not fair, since a candidate for
Navajo president has to obtain the signatures of only about 3,000
people to get on the ballot.
The board gave Wauneka most of what he wanted, including an opportunity
to give Navajo voters a wide range of choices. The board voted to
recommend to the council that the list start with the present 88 for
those who might not want to shrink the body.
In the primary election voters also would be able to mark their ballot
in favor of 72, 48, 44, 32 or 24. Voters would be asked to select
only one size, or their ballot would be thrown out.
Wauneka's resolution points out that by having the referendum at the
primary and general elections, more people would come out and vote.
He told the committee that only about 500 people attended hearings
the board held on the question.
He also said the question is tied to the regular reapportionment of
the council. The Navajo Bill of Rights requires each delegate to represent
about the same number of people, which would make a 110-member council
in which each delegate represented one chapter impossible.
The current system, which is roughly based on the one-man, one-vote
principle, has two or more delegates representing larger chapters
while smaller chapters are bunched together into two-chapter or three-chapter
blocks to be represented by one council delegate. Much of this is
caused by the desire of the council to not touch chapter boundaries.
| Top |
Newcomb man indicted
Staff Report
ALBUQUERQUE — A federal grand jury in Albuquerque
returned indictments last week against the following individual:
Harrison Thomas, 28, of Newcomb has been charged with sexual abuse
of a minor on the Navajo Reservation. The maximum penalty for this
offense is 15 years imprisonment and a $250,000 fine.
An indictment is merely an accusation and the defendants are presumed
innocent unless proven guilty.
| Top |
Three suspects in jail; one released
ALBUQUERQUE — Three of the four suspects remained jailed, while
the fourth was released to the custody of her parents following a
detention hearing today. The judge determined that there was probable
cause that they had committed the crimes which they were charged with.
Action was taken on:
Miguel Israel, 32, (also known as Efrain Reyes and Armando Placoza
Carrillo) is being held without bond. Courtroom sources said there
may be outstanding drug warrants under his aliases...
| Top |
King Day events planned
Staff Report
GALLUP — Several events are being planned for Martin Luther King
Day on Monday in Gallup.
The Gallup NAACP and the City of Gallup Parks and Recreation are hosting
a blessing ceremony and peace march starting at 10 a.m. from the Cultural
Center (Irene Fraizer Dance Arena) to the City Recreation Center.
At the recreation center, the fire department honor guard will present
colors at 11:15 followed by an invocation, pledge, song and recognition
of dignitaries at 11:20. At 11:30 the introduction of a special guest
speaker and others will be held...
| Top |
Director: Red tape ties up tribal museum
Zarana Sanghani
Staff Writer
WINDOW ROCK — Navajo bureaucracy may be impeding the Navajo Nation
Museum, director Geoffrey Brown has said.
"Museums all over the world are becoming entrepreneurial
and scrambling to raise money. Here it's the exact opposite,"
Brown said.
An appropriations act, passed early last year, requires
departments to return to the general fund all income in excess to
the amount projected by the yearly budget...
| Top |
All contents property of the
Gallup Independent.
Any duplication or republication requires consent of the
Gallup
Independent.
Feel free to send any questions or comments to
gallpind@cia-g.com
E-mail the webmaster at
martyr_dom@hotmail.com
