He'll spend a year and one day in federal prison.

Lonnie Winbourn, 57, of Cortez, Colorado, was sentenced to 12 months and one day in federal prison for stealing ancient artifacts from the Canyons of the Ancients National Monument.

In May and June of 2017, Winbourn made several trips into the National Monument lands west of Cortez and located an Ancestral Puebloan ceremonial site. The site contained a large dance plaza, numerous human burial sites, and an underground kiva. Winbourn then proceeded to remove 64 items from the site, including jewelry, an ax head, and other tools.

Winbourn was pulled over by police on June 4, 2017, and arrested on an unrelated warrant. During that arrest, officers found pottery shards in his pockets, and Winbourn revealed that he had other artifacts in his backpack. After that arrest, the full scope of his thefts was disclosed.

Lonnie Winbourn. Courtesy of the La Plata County Sherriff. 

The case was investigated by the Bureau of Land Management; Winbourn was indicted by a federal grand jury in December 2019 for violating the Archeological Resources Protection Act. United States Attorney Jason R. Dunn announced the sentencing in a statement on June 10, 2020, and said:

“Archeological resources at the Canyons of the Ancients are irreplaceable cultural artifacts that have been entrusted to the common good. Anyone who seeks to destroy or profit off of these resources will face prosecution and serious consequences.”    

Dunn also said that all the stolen artifacts have been curated and the theft site has been restored with help from archaeologists at the Canyons of the Ancients National Monument. The Canyons of the Ancients contains the “highest known archeological site density in the United States, with rich, well-preserved evidence of native cultures, to include the Ancestral Puebloan culture."

The Archeological Resources Protection Act was first passed in 1979 and amended in the 1980s. The act aims to protect archaeological resources that are on both public and native American lands for the present and future benefit of the American people.

“We as a society must recognize the importance of respecting all cultures; including those artifacts representing cultural resources of Native Americans.  The protection of Native American cultural resources continues to be a matter central to law enforcement officers and special agents of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management,” said Assistant Special Agent-in-Charge Randall Carpenter, U.S. Bureau of Land Management, Office of Law Enforcement.

Canyon of the Ancients National Monument encompasses over 176,000 acres of federal land located in the Four Corners region of Colorado, about 50 miles from Durango. There are over 6,355 recorded sites in the Monument, dating back 10 thousand years. It is an amazing place to visit and will show you insight into a whole different kind of life in Colorado. 

We hope this is a strong message to anyone who wants to desecrate, violate, or steal from any ancient or protected area in the state that this behavior will not be tolerated. It's a shame that some folks cannot respect the amazing history here.