BILLINGS, Mont.—A federal judge has thrown out a lawsuit that charged federal agents with illegally raiding Montana’s Custer Battlefield Museum during an investigation into the alleged sale of fraudulent artifacts and eagle feathers.
A judgment was filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in favor of federal agents who participated in the raids in 2005 and 2008. Judge Richard Cebull dismissed as “frivolous” claims by museum director Christopher Kortlander that the raids were illegal.
Items were seized by the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, but the investigation closed in 2009 with no charges filed.
Kortlander’s lawsuit was considered a test of the government’s handling of artifact crimes, including a 2009 raid on dealers in the Four Corners region of Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico.
