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Scouts leader banned from Arizona’s national parks

A national Boy Scouts executive was sentenced to a year’s probation and banned from entering all national parks in Arizona for illegally entering an archaeological site considered sacred by Native American, officials said Tuesday.

William Steele, 58, pleaded guilty in a Flagstaff federal court Friday to entering canyons at Canyon de Chelly National Monument in Northern Arizona without a guide and entering archaeological ruins, said Paul K. Charlton, the U.S. Attorney for Arizona. Steele, of Irving, Texas, is an associate director for the Cub Scout Division of the Boy Scouts of America.

In August 2005, Steele was seen entering Yuca Cave, which is considered sacred by both Navajo and Hopi Indians. While there were no reports of damage “the site is considered sacred, so just entering it is considered sacrilege,” said Wyn Hornbuckle, a spokesman for Charlton.

Citizen Online Archive, 2006-2009

This archive contains all the stories that appeared on the Tucson Citizen's website from mid-2006 to June 1, 2009.

In 2010, a power surge fried a server that contained all of videos linked to dozens of stories in this archive. Also, a server that contained all of the databases for dozens of stories was accidentally erased, so all of those links are broken as well. However, all of the text and photos that accompanied some stories have been preserved.

For all of the stories that were archived by the Tucson Citizen newspaper's library in a digital archive between 1993 and 2009, go to Morgue Part 2

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