Blanding Source Named

The person known as "the source" in the investigation carried out in Blanding and the Four Corners area into alleged looting of archaeological sites has been named (Paul Foy and Mike Stark, 'Prosecutor: Artifacts informant clean ', 2nd Feb 2010). He was Ted Gardiner, a Utah antiquities dealer (Gardiner Antiquities). The FBI and U.S. Bureau of Land Management report that they obtained his cooperation without any inducements other than payments, and without any threats. According to the court papers released last month, Gardiner had provided federal agents at the outset with all of his business records, access to his Web site and computers and a list of dealers and collectors. In total it is reported that he was paid 224000$ for his efforts in this operation.



One of the men accused as a result of 'Action Cerberus' is Robert B. Knowlton, 66, a former Grand Junction used-car salesman who ran a website called Bob's Flint Shopfrom Grand Junction . He has been accused of selling three items taken from federal land to Gardiner: a pipe, a Midland knife point and a Hell Gap knife. He has pleaded not guilty, and a trial is set for March 29 and it was in connection with this that the further details of the 'sting' operation were released. Knowlton's is the only case currently scheduled for a trial. At the end of January, lawyers in Utah told a federal magistrate that a handful of the defendants were expected to settle charges with plea bargains, other defendants are fighting charges.

In a further development on the same day U.S. District Judge Clark Waddoups sentenced Blanding resident Charles Denton Armstrong, 44, to a year in prison plus 24 months of probation. Armstrong is reported to have had an extensive criminal history along with ties to a California white-supremacist gang, drug addiction and mental illness, and has already been in a Salt Lake County jail since July 2009. He was arrested July 13 and charged with felony retaliation against a witness after he informed federal agents that he had told others in Blanding he would tie Ted Gardiner to a tree and beat him with a baseball bat. In November, as part of a plea deal, Armstrong pleaded guilty. He blamed Gardiner for the suicide of Jeanne Redd's husband, James Redd, a Blanding doctor who killed himself the day after the couple were indicted and their home searched during the June raid.

This gentleman gets a year in prison and on top of that two years of probation for some heated words said in anger, while those who amassed huge collections of looted objects get off with probation only. Both from the same judge.
Looting is "justifiable" in Utah: Judge Waddoups supports collectors' rights

A Gardiner Antiquities COA (Certificate of Authenticity)