[MSN] Oregon man sentenced to 2 years in prison for skeleton sale

[Museum Security Network Mailinglist]

11/02/2006 

Associated Press 


A Redmond man was sentenced to two years in prison Wednesday for trafficking
in an American Indian skeleton. 

Michael Orf, 30, also was ordered to pay a $20,000 fine to the Confederated
Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation and spend three years on probation. 

In addition, U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken ordered Orf to finish a high
school equivalency program. She allowed him until the first of the year to
report to prison. 

Orf pleaded guilty in June to conspiring to violate the federal
Archaeological Resource Protection Act after selling the skeleton to a
government informant in 2004. 

The 5 1/2-hour sentencing hearing Wednesday capped a six-year investigation
into the looting of Indian artifacts and remains, called "Operation Bring
'Em Back." 

Warm Springs tribal leaders testified before sentencing in federal court
about how grave robbers undo the prayers, songs and ceremonies that
accompany their ancestors in the next life, causing spiritual damage for
mere money. 

"It's a horrible attack on our way of life," said Louie Pitt Jr.,
governmental affairs director for the Warm Springs tribes. 

Delvis Heath, chief of the Warm Springs tribes, sometimes speaking in his
tribal language, said "unwritten laws" have guided native people for tens of
thousands of years and should never be violated for personal gain. 

"Outside people put a monetary value on Indian artifacts. These are
treasures and history of our people," Heath said. "It is like a disease. The
greed will start to take over." 

The federal investigation began in 2000 and has yielded 13 convictions so
far, with sentences ranging from probation to three years in prison, U.S.
Attorney Karin Immergut said. 

It is the largest investigation of its kind in U.S. history targeting
illegal artifact excavation and trafficking in Indian remains, Immergut
said. The Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service led the effort,
she said. 

Investigators discovered more than 100 looted sites in the state, mostly in
southern and central Oregon. Many were done by methamphetamine addicts
looking for quick cash from sales of artifacts, she said. 

"Talk about your loss of moral compass," Immergut said. "If you can't leave
human remains intact in their burial grounds, it strikes me that these
people would do anything." 

Orf was 17 when he and two siblings stumbled upon a skeleton poking out from
rocky soil near the Deschutes River in 1994, according to court records and
testimony. 

Orf ignored his mother's advice to rebury the bones. She told him she had
nightmares about them but did not know he had stored the remains in her
attic, according to testimony Wednesday. 

Orf testified that he once considered selling the skeleton for $15,000, but
declined when he learned it would be in a private collection where no one
could see it. 

After an acquaintance told him of a potential buyer working for a Japanese
museum, Orf sold the skeleton for $1,000 in early 2004. The buyer was
working undercover for the investigation, officials said. 

Prosecutors said the next phase of the investigation would focus on buyers
of the artifacts. 

Before the looters were captured, they dug up more than 100 cultural sites,
causing damage estimated at more than $1 million, according to federal
agents. 

http://www.kgw.com/