2 plead guilty to taking artifacts in SW Colorado
DURANGO, Colorado – A Cortez man and a Canon City woman have pleaded guilty to removing archaeological artifacts from Canyons of the Ancients National Monument in southwest Colorado.
Preston Waggoner and Dawn Laate were fined $2,500 in November, but $2,000 of it was to be suspended if they stayed out of the national monument for a year and wrote a letter of apology. Each one has written a letter.
Plea agreements say a Bureau of Land Management ranger, tipped by a private citizen, found Waggoner and Laate with artifacts from the monument this summer.
They were not part of a separate indictment this summer naming two dozen people in an investigation into the theft and illegal trafficking of American Indian artifacts in the Four Corners area.
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Information from: Durango Herald, http://www.durangoherald.com
