new entity called black hills institute of geological research, incorporated, in the center of the black hills. we got sue back to hill city. we moved the big blocks into the warehouse, actually built a room around where we had put sue, started working on this wonderful fossil. when i was prepping sue, i was cloistred like a monk in the back corner of the back building. doing preparation, you just just leave me alone, right? but everybody was in there. there would be schoolkids in there. or another day, there d be, you know, some scientist guys coming
a large space in between where the lawyers get to pace and walk and show exhibits and things. and then we had the prosecution, which at times had two or three lawyers. on our side, there was a lawyer for each defendant, so there were six lawyers, and five defendants. the sixth defendant, of course, being the black hills institute. our trial was, and still is, the largest criminal case that s ever been tried in south dakota. you cannot say the word sue in the trial. the jurors were going, what happened to sue? that s why they got these guys in the court system, right? the logistics of this trial were incomprehensible. the institute has collected maybe a million fossils. this indictment covers 14 of them and those 14 fossils were collected from seven sites, in seven cases, in all the years these guys have been out in the field, they are accused of being in the wrong place.
statement about black hills institute and the people. you guys did a good job. your new home on the shores of lake michigan. that is, of course, in chicago, at the renowned field museum. sue s bones went on the auction block at sotheby s auction house in new york. bidding started at $500,000 and ended at $7.6 million, but totaled $8.4 million, after a fee to the auction house. mcdonald s and the walt disney house helped foot and the bill and the field museum reaps the benefit. south dakotans say she should have stayed here. morris williams was there in the building and i glanced up at him, this man, supported by our government, in receiving $7 point whatever it was million dollars, but that fossil should have stayed in her hometown museum. if she wasn t going to be in black hills where she morally should be, field museum was a good place. this was just the kind of place that we felt sue had to go to.
felony counts of illegally transporting money in and out of a country. brother neil larson found guilty of one misdemeanor theft. the jury either acquitted neil or couldn t agree on a verdict for the others. bob fa rahr, a third co-owner, convicted of two felonies, making false statements to customs officials. and the black hills institute as a corporation is convicted of two misdemeanor thefts, a felony theft, and twice making false statements to customs officials. they also found them guilty of bringing goods into the states by making a false statement. defendant eddie coals and terry wince were not convicted on any charges. as the verdict was announced, it was almost impossible to believe that the defense had scored a great victory. however, there were some fairly significant felony convictions. the expression, you could have knocked me over with a feather, you could have knocked
land that the government holds in trust for him without the permission of the federal government to begin with. so that s what ended it. fossils are land. judge battley in his filing that the sale was null and void. he had no authority to enter into an agreement with the black hills institute. peter realized that he could not have his fossil back. he was devastated. the judge decided that sue was real estate. sue, the fossil, was real estate.