ALBUQUERQUE – Roland Skeets, 27, an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation who resides in Smith Lake, N.M., pled guilty Dec. 6, in federal court in Albuquerque, to child abuse charges.  Skeets’ plea agreement recommends that he be sentenced to a prison term within the range of 15 to 21 months.

Skeets was arrested in August 2017, on an indictment charging him with child abuse resulting in great bodily injury to a male victim and child abuse endangering a female victim.  According to the indictment, the crimes took place on March 25, 2016, on the Navajo Indian Reservation in McKinley County.

During the proceedings, Skeets pled guilty to an information charging him with assault...

PHOENIX – Brennan Lee Sumatzkuku, 23, of Tuba City, Ariz., was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Douglas L. Rayes to 36 months in federal prison Dec. 5, followed by three years of supervised release. Sumatzkuku had previously pleaded guilty to one count of involuntary manslaughter.

On Jan. 22, Sumatzkuku, an enrolled member of the Hopi Nation, was driving a vehicle with two passengers on the Navajo Nation reservation.  In dark and snowy conditions, Sumatzkuku, whose blood alcohol content was later determined to be .188, drove at a high rate of speed and lost control of the vehicle, causing all three occupants to be ejected.

One victim, 29, an enrolled member of the Hopi Nation, was...

Vanessa Arviso, 42

Nov. 17, 5:40 am

1st DWI, Aggravated

McKinley County Sheriff’s Dep. Johnson Lee was dispatched to Carbon Coal Road nearby the shooting range after receiving information about a drunk driver on the road nearby. Lee arrived on the scene early in the morning at roughly 5:40  am, when he saw a vehicle with the engine still running stuck on the side of the roadway. Lee then saw Arviso, 42, exit the vehicle. Arviso appeared to have red watery eyes, and allegedly to have urinated herself, according to the police report.

Lee conducted two field sobriety tests on Arviso, and she showed signs of intoxication on both. Lee then arrested Arviso for DWI. She...

ALBUQUERQUE – Larry June, 58, an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation who resides in Shiprock, N.M., was sentenced Nov. 21 in federal court in Albuquerque, N.M., to 97 months in prison for his conviction on a voluntary manslaughter charge.

June will be on supervised release for three years after completing his prison sentence.

The FBI and Navajo Nation Division of Public Safety arrested June in Nov. 2016, on a criminal complaint charging him with killing a Navajo woman by stabbing her with a knife on Nov. 25, 2016, on the Navajo Indian Reservation in San Juan County, N.M.  June was subsequently indicted on Dec. 20, 2016, and was charged with second-degree murder.

On Aug. 21, June...