Suspects have histories of varied crimes

Court records indicate many of those charged Wednesday with stealing and trafficking in Native American artifacts aren't strangers to accusations of theft, or the type of drug-related offenses that some speculate may be driving the black-market operation.

Blanding resident James Redd and his wife, Jeanne, were arrested Wednesday, 13 years after they were convicted of desecrating a dead human body and trespassing on public lands, a conviction overruled two years later by a court of appeals.

Tammy Shumway was found guilty of falsifying a financial transaction and possessing drugs; Joseph Smith attempted theft by receiving stolen property last year; Nick Laws was accused of but never charged with using drugs in 2007; and Reese Laws was convicted of possessing drugs with intent to distribute in 2007.

Federal and state officials have tracked and prosecuted looters for years.

In 1985, a Moab man was convicted of illegally excavating an Anasazi alcove in the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's Cedar Mesa Special Management Area in San Juan County. Anasazis were pre-Columbian Indians who lived in the Four Corners Area from about 1000 to 1300 A.D.

From 1989 through 1991, looters excavated 54 cubic yards of material from the Polar Mesa Cave in the northern LaSal Mountains — equal to 20 pickup truckloads — and hauled away more than 500 artifacts, including human remains.

In 1995, nine pot hunters were identified, indicted and prosecuted under the Archaeological Resources Protection Act. All nine pleaded guilty to a combined 17 felonies. Three of the men were sentenced to two-year prison terms and six were placed on probation. They were ordered to pay $25,555 restitution.

In 1998, a St. George man was sentenced to 10 months for damaging and taking stone artifacts from a prehistoric village in Big Round Valley and a rock shelter in the Santa Clara River Gorge, both in Washington County.

"My intention was to find some neat Indian artifacts," he said at his sentencing. "I did not at all realize the seriousness of it. I am truly sorry … that I disturbed something that wasn't mine."

He also apologized to American Indians "living and dead" for disturbing sites "just so I could possess one of their artifacts."

Contributing: Cimaron Neugebauer, Deseret News; Associated Press

E-MAIL: jhancock@desnews.com