After eight long days of investigating, the Navajo Nation Council has paused its public hearing into the ZenniHome scandal until next month. But in subpoenaed testimony from earlier this week, a key witness made a bombshell allegation against her ex-business partner.
Flanked by her Phoenix attorneys, Tamarah Begay, who is the founder of Indigenous Design Studio + Architecture, told her side of the story before members of the Budget and Finance Committee in Window Rock on Wednesday.
“They’ve made accusations — untrue, fabricated, distorted — and for too long my voice has been overshadowed by unhealthy and biased narratives,” said Begay. “So today, I reclaim it. I am not a thief, and I am not a criminal.”
Begay is responsible for hiring the now-bankrupt ZenniHome — once headquartered in Mesa — as a subcontractor to manufacture 160 modular homes at the shuttered Navajo Generating Station.
ZenniHome constructed only 18 buildings after getting $24 million stemming from the American Rescue Plan Act. Begay has even sued in Maricopa County Superior Court — hoping to recoup those federal dollars.
“I want to cooperate and help the Navajo Nation any way that I can,” she added. “I am devastated by what happened here, and I believe I have been targeted and victimized during this whole entire process.”
While on the stand, Begay admitted “their values aligned with my values,” believing ZenniHome could help IDS+A address a housing crisis on the Navajo Nation. Estimates suggest some 30,000 new homes are needed to meet the dire demand on the 27,000-square-mile reservation spanning Arizona, Utah and New Mexico.
But Council Delegate Lester Yazzie pressed Begay whether IDS+A had ever inquired about ZenniHome’s own performance history and if it had “a proven track record of managing projects of this specific scale and technical complexity?”
“We don’t ask our consultants about that, but Bob Worsley has had a successful business. He ran the SkyMall,” replied Begay, adding that she even took a tour of his Mesa facility to see unit design and production “so it was visually there, so I did not need to ask those questions about ZenniHome.“
Under oath, Begay also leveled an accusation against Worsley — the ZenniHome CEO and a former Arizona state Republican senator — claiming “he went ahead and actually forged my name under HozhoniHome and submitted that to the state of Arizona.”
That 2023 filing before the Arizona Corporation Commission created an LLC — naming Begay’s Albuquerque-based firm as a member. According to bank records presented before the committee, HozhoniHome is among at least five ZenniHome-related entities that filed for bankruptcy in Delaware.
Begay didn’t discover the limited liability company’s formation until last year after ZenniHome had already shut down. Clarifying her testimony, legal counsel Myles Lewallen shares they haven’t “seen any documents with her signature forged,” but told KJZZ this entity was still formed “without her consent and against her express direction.”
Valley business lawyer Paul Ellsworth of Ellsworth Cobb & Allen PLC signed off on the articles of organization to establish HozhoniHome LLC as a joint venture between IDS+A and ZenniHome.
His filing identifies Worsley as its manager. Neither Worsley, who has been subpoenaed by the Navajo Nation Council, nor Ellsworth have responded to several requests for comment from KJZZ following Begay’s testimony.
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