A Pennsylvania businessman and his wife insist they are innocent of charges they stole a dinosaur skeleton from federal lands and sold it to a Japanese collector, a Utah newspaper reported Sunday.
According to the Salt Lake Tribune, a civil complaint was filed Tuesday by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Utah accusing Barry James and his wife, April Rhodes-James, of paying a Utah fossil hunter to dig up the skeleton from U.S. Bureau of Land Management lands in Utah.
Prehistoric Journeys, a Pennsylvania firm co-owned by James, allegedly sold the skeleton to an unnamed Japanese fossil collector in May 1992 for $400,000.
"We're totally innocent, and we'll be able to prove that," the paper quoted James as saying. He planned to release a statement Monday.
The newspaper quoted Mark Goodwin, a scientist at the University of California Museum of Paleontology in Berkeley, as saying: "That fossil belongs to the citizens of the United States. It belongs in a U.S. museum. It is of priceless scientific value."
The skeleton in question is that of an allosaurus, a dinosaur from the Jurassic period 150 million years ago, and is said to be one of the 12 near-complete skeletons of the species in the U.S.
James has also been charged with felony theft and a misdemeanor antiquities law violation, the paper reported.