Married couples charged in 2021 'vigilante' kidnapping over stolen truck

Authorities say in 2021, two married couples from Utah were searching for a stolen truck on the Navajo Nation when they took justice into their own hands — pepper-spraying a man’s family before handcuffing him, using a baton and paintball gun on him and bringing him to the San Juan County jail.

Now, more than two years later, Seraphine Warren-Begay, Orlando Begay, Nelton Bekay and Josephine Bekay are each federally charged with kidnapping, aiding and abetting and conspiracy in the case, with a maximum penalty of life in prison.

The Bekays were arrested Tuesday and a federal judge declined prosecutors’ request to keep the pair behind bars until trial, releasing them to pretrial services. Warren-Begay and her husband have not been arrested.

“The United States acknowledges that the charges stem from 2021. The delay in prosecuting this matter is unacceptable,” according to prosecutors’ motion to detain the Bekays. “However, the delay does not forgive the above conduct or minimize the seriousness of the offense.”

It is unclear why charges weren’t filed until now or why the couples weren’t arrested when they brought the severely-injured man to San Juan County deputies, who had him taken to a hospital.

The couples told the deputies and subsequently FBI agents what they had done and authorities found an array of weapons on them, including a handgun, according to court records. The group also had photographs and video of the “bloody and paint covered” victim, identified as John Doe, taken during the kidnapping.

Doe told authorities he thought the group were law enforcement when they showed up to his family’s home, pepper-sprayed his relatives, including children, and took him away.

On March 28, 2021, Warren-Begay reported to police that her truck was stolen from a hotel in Farmington, according to the pretrial detention motion. She enlisted the help of her husband, sister Bekay and Bekay’s husband and “turned to Facebook and local gossip for answers” before she “set her sights” on Doe as the culprit.

In the process, according to authorities, Josephine Bekay “assaulted several innocent, unsuspecting members of the Navajo Nation on her quest to find John Doe.”

Prosecutors said the group went to confront Doe at his home in Red Valley, Arizona, bringing handcuffs, a Glock 9mm, pepper spray and metal baton. Josephine Bekay also allegedly test-fired the handgun “to make sure it was ready if needed” before they went to Doe’s home.

The four made it to Doe’s family property on April 1 and, at first, broke into the wrong home, where Doe’s relative lived with two sons, according to the motion. The relative told Warren-Begay they had the wrong house, telling her which one was Doe’s, before Bekay “pepper-sprayed everyone inside” and broke out the relative’s windows with a baton.

Prosecutors said the group then went to Doe’s house on the property, broke in, hit him with a baton, shot him with a paintball gun and handcuffed him. The group allegedly drove Doe into New Mexico looking for the stolen truck “while handcuffed, bleeding and covered in paint.”

After several hours of searching, the group decided to drop Doe off at the San Juan County jail and met with a deputy there, according to the motion. The deputy “determined that John Doe needed immediate medical attention” and called an ambulance.

Prosecutors said the group “had no evidence” that Doe had stolen Warren-Begay’s truck and based the kidnapping on “gossip, hearsay and contradicting eyewitness accounts of a matching truck roaming the Shiprock area.”

“This is vigilante justice,” according to the motion. “This is unacceptable and dangerous to society.”