ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — An Alaska man will serve nearly three years in federal prison for stealing a fossilized woolly mammoth tusk and cutting it up to sell for profit.
U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason yesterday sentenced 52-year-old Martin Elze to 33 months for the theft of the 5.5 foot tusk from a Bureau of Land Management museum in Anchorage.
Elze in December pleaded guilty to one count of removal of a paleontological resource. An accomplice, Gary Lynn Boyd, pleaded guilty in January and will be sentenced May 15.
The museum's video surveillance system recorded the theft.
Fossilized ivory is valued for jewelry.
