A United States man was on Monday sentenced to 600 hours of community service and ordered to pay more than $13 000 (R84 600) for trying to sell an antique Hawaiian skull in an online auction.
In addition, Los Angeles Judge Howard Matz ordered Jerry Hasson to publish an apology in several Hawaiian newspapers and on a bulletin board devoted to archaeological memorabilia on the online auction site eBay.
Hasson pleaded guilty in January to trying to sell the skull on eBay, with the bids starting at $1 000 (R6 500), saying he had found it on a beach in Hawaii when he was a teenager in 1969.
In the sale notice, Hasson — now 56 — said he had snuck on to the beach with friends and uncovered an entire skeleton, but only kept the skull.
The eBay posting sparked an e-mail to Hasson from a member of a Native Hawaiian group, who asked that the auction be stopped and that the skull be returned to Hawaii for reburial.
The e-mail warned Hasson that selling the skull would violate the Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act, and might violate another law that bars interstate commerce in illegally unearthed archaeological finds.
Hasson removed the skull from eBay, but later agreed to sell it to an undercover agent for $2 500 (R16 200), the court heard.
Before being sentenced on Monday, he apologised to the people of Hawaii and said he had been “very insensitive” in taking the skull and then trying to peddle it.
Of the more than $13 000 Hasson was ordered to pay, $9 945 will go to the Bureau of Indian Affairs and to pay for repatriating the remains in Hawaii. The remaining $3 500 is a fine. — AFP