Famed Mont. Fossil Hunter to Admit Dinosaur Crimes

A famed paleontologist who discovered the world's best perserved dinosaur intends to plead guilty to stealing dinosaur bones from federal land.

In this file photo, Nate Murphy, curator of paleontology for the Judith River Dinosaur Institute,...

In this file photo, Nate Murphy, curator of paleontology for the Judith River Dinosaur Institute, brushes debris from a newly discovered dinosaur skull in the foothills of the Little Snowy Mountains. Murphy who discovered the world's best preserved dinosaur intends to plead guilty to stealing dinosaur bones from federal land.

(James Woodcock/The Billings Gazette/AP Photo)
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The change of plea motion from Nathan Murphy follows state and federal investigations into his alleged attempts to cash in on the highly lucrative fossil market.

Murphy, 51, is a self-taught dinosaur expert who spent much of the last two decades searching for bones in central Montana's Hell Creek formation — a rocky badlands once stalked by the fearsome tyrannosaurus rex. In 200, he famously discoved a mummified, 77-million-year-old duckbilled hadrosaur known as Leonardo, considered the best preserved in the world.

But after previously denying wrongdoing, court documents filed Wednesday show Murphy has reached a plea deal on a federal charge that he stole bones from public land near Malta. He faced up to 10 years in prison if convicted.

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Murphy's case offers a rare glimpse into the illicit underside of paleontology, in which wealthy collectors are willing to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for rare or unusual specimens.

Federal law generally prevents the removal of bones from public lands without a research permit. But the remoteness of many prime fossil grounds in Utah, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and other western states makes enforcement difficult.

"There's probably somebody out stealing fossils from federal land in Montana today and we don't know about it because there's not enough law enforcement to patrol all of these sites," said Martin McAllister, a private archaeological investigator from Missoula.

Murphy also pleaded guilty this month in state court to stealing a raptor fossil from private land and trying to cash in on molds from the specimen. Casts made from those molds could have brought in from $150,000 to $400,000.

The federal plea agreement must be accepted by U.S. District Judge Sam Haddon in Great Falls. The hearing has not yet been set.

Jessica Fehr, the assistant U.S. attorney handling the case, declined comment Thursday.