Case put to rest: Grave robber handed penalty.

Byline: Bill Bishop The Register-Guard

Pausing to hold back tears, Warm Springs tribal leaders testified in federal court in Eugene on Wednesday about how grave robbers undo the prayers, songs and ceremonies that accompany their ancestors in the next life, doing irrevocable spiritual damage - for mere money.

Asked by U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken what penalty they would impose on a 30-year-old Redmond man being sentenced for unearthing an Indian skeleton and selling it, they said their culture has no punishment for such an abomination because no tribal member would do such an abhorrent act.

Aiken, after a 5 1/2 -hour hearing, sentenced Michael J. Orf to 2 1/2 years in prison, a $20,000 fine to be paid to the tribes, and three years of supervision.

The judge also ordered him to finish a high school equivalency program and allowed him until the first of the year to report to prison.

Orf's sentencing closed a case of seven people charged with conspiracy and trafficking in human remains.

It is part of an ongoing investigation dubbed "Operation Bring 'em Back," that began in 2000 and has yielded 13 convictions so far, with sentences ranging from probation to three years in prison, U.S. Attorney Karin Immergut said.

It is the largest investigation of its kind in U.S. history targeting illegal artifact excavation and trafficking in Native American remains, she said. The Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service head the effort.

Investigators discovered more than 100 looted sites in the state - mostly in southern and central Oregon and many done by methamphetamine addicts looking for quick cash from sales of artifacts, she said.

Indian tribes have made great strides in the past 30 years to gain federal laws protecting their sacred sites on public lands, but more remains to be done to educate people about the importance of burial sites to the entire fabric of Indian culture, said Louie Pitt Jr., governmental affairs director for the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs Reservation of Oregon.

While no one knows the nature of the hereafter, Indians believe that disturbing a grave does great injury to the destiny of the spirit of the individual, Pitt testified.

"It's a horrible attack on our way of life," Pitt said. "It is almost unspeakable, emotionally, in terms of the damage it does to us as a people."

Beyond the personal spiritual insult, the looting of sacred sites and the trade in artifacts under the excuse of studying or preserving the past disrespects the fact that Indian cultures continue intact, in spite of attempts by the dominant culture to eradicate them, he said.

Delvis Heath Sr., chief of the Warm Springs Tribe, testified that putting a monetary value on artifacts is "like a disease" that will cause the problem to spread.

Sometimes speaking in his tribal language, Heath said "unwritten laws" have guided native people for tens of thousands of years and should never be violated for personal gain.

"Outside people put a monetary value on Indian artifacts. These are treasures and history of our people," Heath said. "It is like a disease. The greed will start to take over."

Orf was 17 when he and two siblings stumbled upon a skeleton poking out from eroding rocky soil near the Deschutes River in 1994, according to court records and testimony. He ignored his mother's advice to rebury the bones. She told him she had nightmares about them, according to testimony Wednesday. Unbeknownst to her, Orf stored the remains for years in her attic.

Orf testified that he once considered selling the skeleton for $15,000, but declined when he learned it would be in a private collection where no one could see it. After an acquaintance told him of a potential buyer working for a Japanese museum, Orf sold the skeleton for $1,000 in early 2004.

The buyer, however, was working undercover in Operation Bring 'em Back. Orf pleaded guilty in June to conspiring to violate the federal Archeological Resource Protection Act.

Orf enlisted several co-defendants to arrange the sale and transfer of the remains. Three of them were convicted on misdemeanor charges. Three others got prison terms for illegal artifact trafficking or for removing human remains from public land. One of the defendants also was charged with dealing methamphetamine.

The skeleton will be returned to the tribes, where spiritual leaders will consider how best to return it to the Earth, according to testimony by Robert Brunoe, a historic preservation officer for the tribes. The goal will be to determine which of the three tribes of the confederation is most likely related to the individual so that their tribal customs will govern the reburial, he said.

Roberta Kirk, a tribal member who arranges the return of human remains from museums and universities under federal laws, said she knows of 300 individuals' remains stored in just two museums.

She would not guess how many hundreds are uncounted in other collections.

"They are not at rest, sitting in boxes, on shelves in museums," she said. "They need to be returned to the Earth."