Thousands of dollars worth of Navajo rugs, moccasins, American Indian war shirts and other memorabilia were recovered in Colorado on Tuesday weeks after the items were stolen from national historic sites in Arizona and Nebraska.
Maxwell Garihan and Gary Paul Garihan are facing federal charges of knowingly transporting stolen goods after the brothers sold some of the artifacts to an antique dealer in Denver and attempted to sell more to a dealer in Wheat Ridge, according to agents from the National Park Service.
A federal affidavit says Maxwell Garihan sold several Navajo rugs to Lewis Bobrick, a Denver antique dealer who did not know the artifacts were stolen.
Bobrick says he checked the usual websites where traders keep information about stolen goods before he purchased the rugs. He also searched for the rugs on Google to determine if there was any trouble associated with them, and came up empty.
“I am always nervous when I buy anything from a stranger,” Bobrick said Tuesday. “Rarely do walk-ins have this good of stuff. I proceeded with the deal and wrote the guy a check. Usually a thief won’t take a check.”
Bobrick returned the rugs when he found out they were contraband and lost more than $15,000.
The case began on May 6, when thieves used a sledgehammer to break into the Hubbell Trading Post in Ganado, Ariz., and stole $80,000 in Navajo rugs. The post is a National Historic Site owned by the National Park Service. On July 9, the Agate Fossil Beds Visitor Center in Harrison, Neb., was also burglarized and most of the James Cook-Red Cloud Collection consisting of war shirts, clubs, moccasins and other late 1800s Plains artifacts were removed.
Pat Gavin, a special agent for the Park Service, said the total value of all the items stolen and damage caused to the display cases totaled $120,000.
On July 14, the brothers were arrested while fishing after a ranger ran one of their names off a fishing license and discovered there was a warrant for his arrest.
Twenty-eight marijuana plants were found at the brothers’ home in Crook, according to the affidavit.
On Tuesday morning, agents found a duffel bag full of some of the artifacts dumped under some brush in Logan County.
Agents managed to obtain blood evidence at the scene of one crime because the thief cut himself while breaking the glass. Maxwell Garihan was identified as a suspect in the case by the identification left on Bobrick’s canceled check, according to the affidavit.
Staff writer Felisa Cardona can be reached at 303-954-1219 or fcardona@denverpost.com.
