Court Cases | Yazzie pleads guilty to sexual abuse of minor

LOS ANGELES

Bennick Yazzie, 32, of Shiprock, has pleaded guilty to one count of sexual abuse of a minor.

Unlike most defendants who plead guilty, Yazzie did not sign a plea agreement with the prosecution. Instead, he pleaded guilty in front of a federal district court on Jan. 14.

Facing a possible 15 years in prison, by pleading guilty, he will be sentenced to four years and nine months at his formal hearing, which has not been set. He remains in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service in Albuquerque.

Yazzie was arrested in September 2021 by FBI agents after the accuser, who was under the age of 16 between 2006 and 2010 when the abuse occurred, told officials about the abuse.

Yazzie admitted during an interview of committing the abuse five or six times.

Assault charges dropped, man pleads guilty to sexual abuse

Oliver Lee Hurley has pleaded guilty to the sexual abuse of a minor. The formal sentencing date has not been set.

Hurley was arrested for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and sexual abuse assault of a child. However, by the time of his plea agreement, the assault charges had been dropped.

He was facing a maximum penalty of 15 years for the sexual abuse charge, but prosecutors agreed to recommend a sentence of 10 to 13 years under his plea agreement. He will be on the sex offender list for the rest of his life on his release.

Hurley was arrested in November 2008 in connection with the death of an Arizona man in the Navajo Nation. Initially, the complaint filed against him was assault with a deadly weapon, but these charges were never filed. Instead, he was charged with three counts of sexual abuse of a child.

The FBI had initially taken Hurley into custody in connection with the death of Nicholas Ellis, a resident of Inscription House.

On Aug. 10, 2008, Kailberta Hurley reported that she had found Ellis deceased three days before to the FBI agents.

She said she was with Ellis and Hurley, her uncle in Kaibeto, about 9 p.m. on Aug. 7. The three, along with another man who was never identified, began drinking, and after about 30 minutes, they got in a car and drove about 30 minutes until they stopped on Route 98, where they stopped and walked up a nearby hill where they continued drinking.

She said Ellis became upset that the unknown man was talking to her. She said Ellis grabbed her neck and threw her to the ground. After that, she said, her uncle and Ellis began to fight.

The two were fighting with their fists, and Ellis was knocked to the ground, said Kailberta.

After that, her uncle picked up a rock and dropped it on Ellis, said Kailberta. Her uncle then told her to go home while he and Ellis talked it out. She then headed back to her home with the unidentifiable man.

She said she heard Ellis tell her uncle he would not do it again as she left. The following day, she woke up and saw that Ellis had not returned home the night before. She got hold of Oliver Hurley, who said something to the effect that he “may have beat and hurt him.”

She decided to drive over to the place where she last saw him. When she got there, she saw that Ellis was deceased.

FBI agents interviewed Oliver Hurley on Aug. 10. He admitted driving to the hill and drinking, but he denied being in an altercation with Ellis.

A little later, he admitted to getting into a fight with Ellis after choking his niece. He said he fell to the ground after being punched by Ellis, and he then went home.

He said before he left to go home, Ellis told him it would not happen again, and he felt that all was right between the two of them.

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