Utah man indicted on federal charges of stealing 190 million-year-old dinosaur footprints
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A Utah man has been indicted on federal charges of stealing a fossilized dinosaur footprint from the Jurassic period.
The U.S. attorney's office in Utah announced Wednesday that a grand jury returned the indictment against 35-year-old Jared Ehlers of Moab. He is facing up to 20 years in prison on the most serious of four counts.
Authorities in southeast Utah say the three-toed ancient track was pried last month from the sandstone on the Hell's Revenge Trail in the Sand Flats Recreation Area near Moab.
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Messages at Ehlers' house were not immediately returned. It's unknown if he has an attorney yet.
Utah Bureau of Land Management District paleontologist Rebecca Hunt-Foster says the dinosaur tracks are 190 million years old. She says they are one-of-a-kind tracks that don't have a price.