The first thing the museum director saw was the broken door. Then the desecrated display cases.
When Veronica Cuthair finished surveying the Ute Mountain Tribal Museum, she realized that nearly all of the tribe’s ancient pottery, beadwork and arrowheads were gone.
The scheduled sentencing in federal court Friday of a man who reportedly admitted to the thefts not only will give tribal members a sense of closure, but it will mean their artifacts can be returned. Authorities have been holding the items as evidence.
“Some of them are irreplaceable, and I hope they come back intact,” said Cuthair, a Ute Mountain Ute tribal member who runs the museum near Towaoc.
The day after the break-in, which happened in January 2004, Cortez police stopped a car driven by Robert Glenn Hanson Jr., 37, of Montezuma County, court records show.
The 1990 blue Ford Mustang he was driving had been reported stolen. Police found a syringe with a small amount of methamphetamine in Hanson’s coat pocket, according to sentencing documents. He also had a warrant out for his arrest for violating parole.
As police searched the car, they found ancient pottery and other items wrapped in Ute Mountain Tribal Park T-shirts, according to a plea agreement filed with the court.
Hanson reportedly told officers that he was on his way to sell the artifacts and that he was hoping to get $5,000 for them.
In a plea agreement filed in federal court, Hanson’s sentence could range from 12 to 24 months in prison and a fine that could be as much as $30,000.
Walter Echo-Hawk, senior staff attorney for the Native American Rights Fund based in Boulder, said the looting and selling of Native American artifacts is a serious problem in the Four Corners area.
The pottery Hanson is accused of stealing, made by the Anasazi people who lived in the area until 1300, is particularly prized by private collectors, said Echo-Hawk.
“There are rich people out there, collectors, who will pay a lot of money for these things,” Echo-Hawk said.
Staff writer Alicia Caldwell can be reached at 303-820-1930 or acaldwell@denverpost.com.
