Richelle Montoya says she was sexually harassed, Nygren staffers ‘don’t help’
Special to the Times | Reginald Chee
President Buu Nygren answers questions during the Council’s Spring Session in Window Rock on April 15. Nygren delivered a State of the Navajo Nation Address.
WINDOW ROCK – Vice President Richelle Montoya alleges she was sexually harassed during a meeting last August.
With John L. Tsosie’s help and encouragement to write a statement detailing what happened in that meeting, the vice president described how she felt. Tsosie is President Buu Nygren’s former Missing and Murdered Indigenous People Task Force liaison.
“I was not physically hurt,” Montoya said. “I’m OK.
“But I was made to feel that I had no power to leave the room,” she added. “I was made to feel that what I was trying to accomplish didn’t mean anything. That I was less than––”
The vice president is the first high official to speak publicly about being sexually harassed after several former Nygren appointees shared with the Navajo Times last year how some of the administration’s women staffers experience violence and abuse, from sexual assault to sexual harassment in the president’s office.
Montoya’s livestream on Facebook Tuesday night revealed she had separated from the Navajo Nation’s first second gentleman in August 2023 when the sexual harassment happened.
The vice president announced Aug. 16, 2023, that she and her husband, Olsen Chee, decided to separate after 11 years of marriage. The separation was announced in a press release after the Navajo Times broke the story.
“Going through that (separation), then this (sexual harassment) happening, was not a good time in my life,” Montoya said. “I prayed about it. I toughed it out. I said, ‘Nope, I got to keep going.’ I told my people I was going to keep going, and every day I was going to give them my best. So, I did.”
Montoya revealed she discussed her statement with a few Nygren staffers. They asked her to elaborate on details “to get a better understanding.”
“They asked me, ‘What do you want the outcome to be of this?’ And my response was, I didn’t want to be alone with this person – ever,” she said. “And that I don’t want him to talk to me or apologize or try to explain it – or anything.”
Read the full story in the April 18 edition of the Navajo Times.
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