A federal grand jury indicted a 54-year-old Mesa County man this week on two counts of excavating and removing fossils from the McInnis Canyons National Conservation Area, a place known internationally for its dinosaur discoveries.
If convicted, Ricky Lee Armstrong could face up to five years in prison and a fine up to $250,000 for each of the two counts, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Colorado. Armstrong was released on a $10,000 bond.
Armstrong also faces two drug-related charges in Mesa County after he was found with methamphetamine in the canyons, according to his Mesa County arrest affidavit.
Armstrong in July excavated and removed paleontological resources, according to the grand jury indictment. He then allegedly transported them away from the area.
The indictment does not specify exactly what Armstrong is accused of excavating, but it could have been anything from bones and teeth to shells, leaf impressions, footprints or burrows. The indictment alleges the value of resources and cost of restoring them exceeded $500.
On July 13, Bureau of Land Management rangers and law enforcement agents located Armstrong and a woman on a rural access road on federal land near the Utah border, according to the Mesa County arrest affidavit.
The rangers searched Armstrong’s car and found archaeological artifacts along with methamphetamine and other drug paraphernalia, the Mesa County affidavit said.
The rangers called the Mesa County Sheriff’s Office for assistance, and a deputy then arrested Armstrong on an outstanding warrant for a traffic incident in Rio Blanco County and the drug-related charges.
McInnis Canyons National Conservation Area has 123,430 acres managed by the Bureau of Land Management, about 30 miles from Grand Junction. Internationally important fossils have been uncovered during more than a century of excavation, and pictograph and petroglyph sites abound, according to the BLM website.
Fossil poaching is an ongoing problem, mostly in fossil-rich countries such as China, Argentina and the United States.
Paleontologists are strongly opposed to even the legal trade in fossils because a fossil that is removed and sold into private hands, without correlating data, loses its scientific importance, according to a June 2014 article in “
