California doctor pleads guilty to looting Native American artifacts from public lands

Artefact hunting in the US can also have high penalties ( Louis Sahagun, 'Mono County doctor pleads guilty to looting Native American artifacts from public lands' LA Times, 15th August 2016).

A Mono County doctor pleaded guilty Monday to two felony counts connected to the looting of Native American artifacts from public lands, including Death Valley National Park. Jonathan Bourne, 59, an anesthesiologist at Mammoth Hospital, also agreed to pay $249,372 to cover the costs of curating and storing about 20,000 relics that federal agents found in his home overlooking the High Sierra community of Mammoth Lakes, U.S. Atty. Phillip A. Talbert said.

Like the metal detectorists, the guy actually posted photos of himself online taking the artefacts. Among the artefacts he had some he'd taken from human burials "glass trade beads in 2010 from a prehistoric cremation and burial site in the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest in Nevada". He seems to have made a plea bargain on two of the many charges he was faced with and as a result

Bourne faces a maximum statutory penalty of two years in prison and a $20,000 fine for each of the two felony counts. However, “the government has agreed not to request any time in custody for Mr. Bourne,” Lauren Horwood, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney’s office, said.