Navajo Man from Colorado Receives Seven-Year Prison Sentence for Federal Assault Conviction
| U.S. Attorney’s Office August 16, 2012 |
ALBUQUERQUE—This morning in federal court, Steven Haley, 22, an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation who resides in Dolores, Colorado, was sentenced to 84 months in prison for his federal assault conviction. Haley will be on supervised release for a term not to exceed three years after he completes his prison sentence. Haley also was ordered to pay $4078.54 in restitution to cover his victim’s medical costs. Haley remains in federal custody pending his sentencing hearing which has yet to be scheduled.
Haley was indicted on April 13, 2011, and charged with (1) assault with a dangerous weapon; (2) assault resulting in serious bodily injury; and (3) using a firearm during a crime of violence. The charges were based on a March 5, 2011 incident during which Haley shot another Navajo man with a rifle at a residence near Red Rock, New Mexico, on the Navajo Indian Reservation.
U.S. Kenneth J. Gonzales said that Haley pled guilty to count two of the indictment on January 6, 2012, under a plea agreement. In the plea agreement, Haley admitted shooting the victim during the early hours of March 5, 2011. Court records reflect that Haley went to a “get together” at the victim’s residence on the evening of March 4, 2011, where, after consuming alcohol, he got into a dispute with the victim and others. Haley left the victim’s resident after the dispute became physical but returned with a rifle in the early hours of March 5, 2011, in order to retrieve his cellphone. After Haley was denied permission to enter the residence, an argument ensued, and Haley shot at the door in the general direction of where the victim was standing on the other side of the door. The bullet traveled through the door and struck the victim in the head, causing him serious bodily damage.
Counts one and three of the indictment were dismissed after Haley was sentenced as required by the plea agreement.
The case was investigated by the FBI and the Navajo Nation Department of Public Safety and is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jack E. Burkhead.