A federal grand jury indicted a Colorado man Tuesday in the selling and transporting of archaeological artifacts, bringing the total number of those indicted for artifact-related crimes in a recent sting to 26, officials said.
According to the indictment, Robert B. Knowlton, 66, of Grand Junction, Colo., faces four counts of illegal selling, or offering to sell, an archaeological resource and one count of interstate transportation of stolen property.
Knowlton is the 26th person charged as part of a federal sting spanning more than two years in the Four Corners region.
The items Knowlton is accused of selling include a Cloud Blower pipe, a Midland Point and a Hell Gap knife, which have a combined value of more than $6,000. The items are believed to have been stolen from federal lands. A search affidavit stated Knowlton conducted at least two meetings with an undercover FBI artifacts dealer in 2008 to arrange for sales of the artifacts.
Knowlton — who ran an Internet-based business called Bob's Flint Shop — met at least twice in 2008 with an artifacts dealer working undercover for the FBI and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, according to a search warrant affidavit.
On one of those visits, Knowlton said his collection included about 3,700 artifacts with a retail value of a half-million dollars or more, documents state.
He told the informant he bought the Midland knife point from a "park ranger" who said he found it after a fire on U.S. Forest Service land near Telluride, records say. He said he bought "a lot of stuff" from the ranger.
The Hell Gap knife came from an area near a southern Utah airport, Knowlton told the informant.
The two settled on $8,600 for several items, including the three mentioned in the indictment.
Knowlton faces up to two years in prison and a $20,000 fine for each count of selling the items and up to 10 years and a $250,000 fine for transporting them between states, as he allegedly sold them to someone in Utah.
Jeff Dorschner, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Colorado, said that while he doesn't know where the artifacts were taken from, they were sold from Fort Collins, Colo., and transported by the U.S. Postal Service to Utah.
Knowlton is the second Coloradan to be charged, but the first to be indicted in Colorado. The other was indicted in Utah. There were 24 initial indictments in Utah. Two of those indicted have since committed suicide.
The investigation of Knowlton was conducted by the Bureau of Land Management and the FBI.
Contributing: Associated Press
e-mail: emorgan@desnews.com