photo by: Courtesy of Kickapoo Tribe

Lester Randall

A former Kickapoo Tribal Council chairman and ex-regent for Haskell Indian Nations University has been banished from the Kickapoo Tribe after he pleaded guilty to numerous crimes Friday, including attempted homicide and arson.

The sentence of banishment means that the former regent, Lester Randall, is “considered legally dead and a nonentity to the Kickapoo Tribe,” according to a news release from the tribe.

Randall pleaded guilty in Tribal District Court to two counts of attempted homicide, one count of attempted arson, one count of second-degree assault, one count of larceny, one count of conspiracy to commit larceny and one count of embezzlement, the release said.

In addition to the banishment, he was ordered to pay restitution in excess of $150,000 and to forfeit three homes and numerous motor vehicles. At the conclusion of sentencing, he was taken into federal custody to face charges of sexual exploitation of a minor, producing and receiving child pornography, enticement for prostitution and aggravated domestic battery, the release said.

“Members of our Tribe can now begin the process of healing from the hurt and damage caused by Lester Randall, Tribal Chairperson Gail Cheatham said in the release. “Randall has caused hurt and trauma on our Reservation that will take years to overcome.”

A plea offer memorandum from the tribal attorney general, Napoleon S. Crews, and signed by Randall, states that Randall came to the reservation in his youth and had “wreaked havoc and pain” for decades, using the reservation as his “personal playground” to traumatize Native people and to commit crimes. The memo accuses him of corruption and treachery and of violating his oath of office as a tribal chairman. It says his “financial greed” contributed to drug and alcohol problems “that permeate the reservation” and indicated that some of his victims had fled the reservation, refusing to return as long as he remained.

Randall appears on a list of Haskell National Board of Regents as recently as 2021; when he left the board wasn’t immediately clear, but a fellow member of the board told the Journal-world in July 2024 that she believed he had resigned in 2023. Randall’s LinkedIn page indicates that he was on the board from January 2021 until September 2023.