Florida Man Charged In Dinosaur Fossils Case
From the archive: published Oct 17, 2012, 14 years ago. Details may have changed since.
A Florida man has been arrested in connection with the New York dinosaur fossils case. The man was charged with smuggling dinosaur fossils into the United States from Mongolia.
Eric Prokopi is a self-described “commercial paleontologist” who buys and sells whole and partial dinosaur skeletons, reports Boston.com. Prokopi was arrested at his home in Gainesfulle, Florida, according to a complaint that was unsealed by prosecutors.
The man was charged on Wednesday with smuggling goods in the US as well as interstate sale and receipt of stolen goods. He will also face one count of conspiracy to smuggle illegal goods, to possess stolen property, and to make false statements. If he is convicted on all charges in the dinosaur fossils case, Prokopi could face up to 35 years in prison.
The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations handled the arrest, and Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara stated that the investigation “uncovered a one-man black market in prehistoric fossils.”
The case began when a Tryannosaurus skeleton was seized by the US government after it was sold at auction for $1.05 million, according to The San Francisco Chronicle. Prokopi has been involved in the ensuing lawsuit, which alleges that the dinosaur fossils actually belong to the Mongolian government.
Michael McCullough, Prokopi’s attorney, states that his client is entitled to keep the skeleton, because he spent a year putting it together at great expense. He added that the US government is incorrect in saying how the skeleton pieces were brought to the country. He stated that there were four shipments in total with only 37 percent of the skeleton coming from one specimen.
In the dinosaur fossils case, federal prosecutors allege that Prokopi misrepresented the identity and value of the Tyrannosaurus bataar skeleton, a dinosaur that lived about 70 million years ago.
Prokopi has also been accused of illegally importing the skeleton of a Saurolophus, another dinosaur from Mongolia, which he sold to a gallery in California along with fossils of two other dinosaurs native to Mongolia.