FIve more escape
from county jail

Aneth official on hot seat
Accused of misusing funds

Lights honor Navajo Officers

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Five more escape from county jail
By Sekai K. Mutunhu, Staff Writer

GALLUP — Citing concerns over the structural integrity of the McKinley County Detention Center after five inmates escaped through a skylight this morning, officials are returning 70 inmates, transferred into the jail from other counties, back to their respective lock-ups.

“This is a permanent measure because the structural integrity of this building is not good,” said Bob Bass, an official with Correctional Services Corporation, the private firm that operates the jail. “So, for the public safety we are transporting them out.”

CSC is in the process of returning 44 inmates who were transferred to Gallup from Bernalillo County and 26 inmates who were transferred from San Juan County.

Bass said he also considering removing 52 female inmates who were transferred to the detention center from Montana. If approved, the women would be transferred to a CSC facility in Texas.

Bass along with David Beck, a corporate jail consultant based in North Carolina, took charge of the facility this morning after Facility Administrator Mabel Henderson took a leave of absence.

Bass said Henderson’s departure was not connected to the early morning escapes Bass said he and Beck will continue to oversee the daily operations of the jail until it is handed over to the new contractors on Jan. 1.

The medium-security facility was placed on immediate lockdown after a head-count came up five short around 1 a.m., Bass said, adding that security checks are conducted every hour on the hour.

Bass said an investigation is being conducted to determine exactly how the men climbed up and broke through a skylight in the housing unit. The inmates gained access to the roof and then formed a rope out of bedsheets that they threw over the south side of the building. The men are believed to have cut themselves during the escape after blood was found on the razor wire that they had to climb over into to escape the grounds.

The escapees are:

Steve Wagner, 39, charged with residential burglary and being held on $17,000 bail.

Timothy Mora, 24, being held on a $550,000 bond and charged with auto burglary, possession of drug paraphernalia, aggravated burglary, kidnapping and criminal sexual contact with a minor.

Oscar Vasquez, 34, being held without bond and charged with criminal sexual contact with a minor and possession of drug paraphernalia.

Luis Zoto, 30, charged with kidnapping, criminal sexual penetration of a minor. He was being held on a $200,000 bond.

Jesus Peregrino Ruiz, 33, charged with kidnapping and criminal sexual penetration. He was being held on a $250,000 bond.

All five escapees had been transferred to the Gallup lockup from Bernalillo County Detention Center in Albuquerque. New Mexico State Police, Gallup City Police and the McKinley County Sheriff’s Department are all searching for the men who were last spotted wearing olive green jumpsuits.

Today’s escape brings the total number of inmates who have escaped from the detention center in the last three months up to 12.
On Sept. 5, four men broke out of the facility by climbing through a ventilation shaft. All but one of the men have since been recaptured. On Oct. 4, three inmates again escaped by climbing through a ventilation shaft around 2:30 a.m. Accused murderer Gildardo Rodriguez, 29, spent 16 days on the run before he was caught at a suspected drug house in his hometown of Phoenix. All three escapees have since been recaptured.

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Aneth official on hot seat
Accused of misusing funds

By Jim Maniaci, Diné Bureau

WINDOW ROCK — Tina Lansing — believed to be in hiding — wrote more than $40,000 worth of unauthorized checks to herself and her husband on Aneth Chapter accounts, the Office of Ethics and Rules charged Wednesday.

Bernadine Martin, director of the Office of Ethics and Rules, read the complaint of 62 charges to the Ethics and Rules Committee Wednesday, and requested a hearing date in late January. The committee decided to conduct the hearing Jan. 3 and 4.

Also charged in the complaint are Chapter President Leonard Lee and Vice President Nelson Rockwell, who allegedly co-signed all except one of 82 checks allegedly written by Lansing from July 1, 1998, through Jan. 22, 1999. In addition to 61 checks subpoenaed from a bank, Martin listed another 21 totaling $9,563 as determined from a bank statement.

The checks in the complaint were written on just one of four accounts, Martin said about one of the largest cases ever in Navajo history in which a chapter official is charged with unauthorized personal use of tribal funds.

Martin asked for a hearing in late January to be sure Lansing, who she said has disappeared, could be found and served with the complaint at least 20 days before the hearing date. This is the time specified in the committee’s rules to allow defendants time to find lawyers or lath the Office of the Auditor General and the Office of the Prosecutor were asked to investigate.

Lansing received a subpoena Sept. 8 to produce records by Sept. 27. When she didn’t bring in the 11 types of records, including those covering the use of $30,000 for veterans, the committee conducted an order to show cause on Oct. 11. She told the committee she had copies of four of the types of records, plus some of a fifth type. Lansing agreed to provide the rest of the documents by Nov. 11 and cooperate with the committee’s decision.

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Lights honor Navajo officers

By Jim Maniaci, Diné Bureau

WINDOW ROCK — Christmas will be a lot brighter around the police station here if the Window Rock Police District can find an early Santa Claus. And the lights will recall the brave deeds of fallen police officers.

The district’s officers want to install Christmas lights — especially blue ones — around the 40-year-old two-story concrete and block structure...

The Navajo Department of Law Enforcement is asking the public to donate new or used outdoor Christmas lights. Anyone wanting to donate lights in cood condition should contact Capt. Steve Nelson, Lt. Wallace Yazzie, or Sgt. Sam Tsosie at the polcie station at (520) 871-6112 or 871-6113....

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Gallup could get juvenile detox

By S.J. Ludesche, Staff Writer

GALLUP— McKinley County has the largest number of juveniles referred to juvenile probation officers for alcohol violations than any other county in the state, according to Juvenile Probation Officer Mike Thompson.

For this reason, Thompson and representatives from various agencies have joined together in an effort to create a juvenile detox center for Gallup patterned after the Na’Nizhoozhi Center, Inc....

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Fleming to leave IHS after 20 years

By Bill Donovan, Staff Writer

GALLUP — Most people on the Navajo Reservation and in Gallup probably can’t remember a time when Dr. Tim Fleming wasn’t head of the Gallup Indian Medical Center.

Since taking the position in December 1979, he has seen the hospital through a lot of changes, a crisis or two, and gone to thousands of meetings.

But in January, he’ll be leaving Gallup to take a position as medical director for the student health center at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff.

“I’m going to miss Gallup a lot,” he said. “As I leave, I’m trying to emphasize that I am not leaving because I am unhappy or anything like that.”

But, with 25 years with the government and now eligible for full retirement, he said he and his family decided it was time to move on....

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Kandy Kitchen killer gets 18 years

By Tom Purdom, Staff Writer

GRANTS — For bludgeoning 73-year-old Frances Wooten to death and then burglarizing her home, 22-year-old Chester Coho has been sentenced to 18 years in prison.

The murder took place in Kandy Kitchen on Dec. 15, 1998, and Coho and his cohort, 19-year-old Vanceson Jake, were arrested later and charged with the crimes. Jake is undergoing psychiatric evaluation to see if he is competent to stand trial...

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New Hillerman novel taken from the actual headlines

By Gaye Brown, Staff Writer

GALLUP — Any book that starts out with a character reading The Gallup Independent while sitting in the Navajo Nation Inn has already hit a soft spot in my heart.

Never mind that it’s Tony Hillerman’s new offering in his Leaphorn and Chee mystery series.

Never mind that it is set in the canyon country of southern Utah and northern Arizona, after the all-consuming manhunt in the summer of 1998.

“Hunting Badger” (Tony Hillerman, HarperCollins, 1999, $26) is a tightly plotted thriller, released only a week after the remains of Allen “Monty” Pilon (one of two cop-killers) were found by hunters in the remote San Juan River canyons after a disastrous months-long manhunt ...

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