A federal government crackdown on black-market Indian artifacts and the looting of dozens of sacred objects from Indian ruins in Utah, Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico continued to unfold this week, reports USA Today. Jeanne Redd, 59, and her daughter Jerrica, 37, both of Blanding, Utah, were put on probation, the first to be sentenced in the Department of the Interior investigation, launched in late 2006. The women pleaded guilty to multiple felonies involving theft and excavation of artifacts and surrendered an antiquities collection of more than 800 objects.
Since the investigation began, 26 people, including several well-known antiquities collectors, have been indicted. The investigation has included grave robbers looting Native American burial grounds, two suspects committing suicide and pre-dawn raids by federal agents. Jeanne Redd is the widow of James Redd, a physician and antiquities collector who committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning one day after his arrest in June.