Artifacts thief is sentenced

Jace Radke

Monday, Jan. 19, 2004 | 9:24 a.m.

A Moapa Valley man has been sentenced to five months in prison, five months of home confinement and ordered to pay $80,085 in restitution for his part in taking thousands of American Indian artifacts.

Kevin Peterson, an all-terrain vehicle guide in the Logandale area, said that he had been collecting arrowheads and other artifacts since he was a child.

"I had been doing this for most of my life, and I didn't really understand," Peterson told U.S. District Judge Roger Hunt during his sentencing Friday. "I got involved and I shouldn't have. I'd like to apologize to everyone."

Peterson is the fifth and final defendant sentenced as part of Operation Indian Rocks, a federal investigation that uncovered more than 11,000 looted artifacts from sites in Nevada, California and other Western states.

The artifacts had an estimated value of more than $500,000 and were taken from protected public lands.

Four other defendants in the case were previously sentenced. David Peeler, a former Las Vegas resident who now lives in Hawaii, was sentenced to five years' probation and ordered to pay $56,636 in restitution.

Deanne Wilkie of Carson City was sentenced to five years' probation, and was ordered to pay more than $19,000 in restitution. Her former husband, Bobbie Wilkie of Oklahoma, was sentenced last month to 37 months in prison and was ordered to pay $102,364 in restitution.

Frank Embrey of Henderson was sentenced in August to 18 months in prison and ordered to pay $86,196 in restitution.