FOSSILS  (CONT)

over James's purchase from two Utah "rockhounds" of an Allosaurus skeleton and its subsequent sale to a museum in Japan. Allosaurus was a 40-foot-long carnivore that lived about 110 million years ago.

The theft, from BLM land about 100 miles south of Salt Lake City, occurred in the early 1990s -- the two poachers could not remember the exact year -- but came to BLM's attention only when an informant told the agency the poachers had shown him a picture of it.

James never admitted wrongdoing, and settled to "resolve the case," rather than go into further debt fighting the charges, said his attorney, Mark Moffat of Salt Lake City. The two poachers avoided prosecution because time had run out under both the federal and state statutes of limitation.

BLM regional paleontologist Laurie Bryant, who helped federal prosecutors with the case, said the poachers "collected a mostly complete skeleton with picks and shovels," while James "brought it back to the lab, patched it up, sold it to the museum and lied about the origin."

Bryant said the $50,000 settlement was the largest ever obtained by BLM in a poaching case. James, however, sold the skeleton for $400,000, and the Japanese Museum has declined to give it back.
"Fifty thousand was the best we could do," Bryant said.

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.