Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 23, Number 6, 1 June 2007 — Burial theft indictment [ARTICLE]

Burial theft indictment

On May 23, Daniel Taylor was indicted by a Hawai'i island grand jury on one count of theft in the first degree for allegedly stealing Native Hawaiian burial

items from a Kohala cave in 2004. According to a press release from the state attorney general's office, Daniel Taylor and his aeeompliee, John Carta, allegedly removed approximately 157 Hawaiian burial items from Kanupa cave sometime in June 2004. Some of the burial items bore labels indicating that they belonged to the J.S. Emerson Collection. Subsequently, Taylor allegedly sold or tried to sell the items taken from Kanupa Cave on the black market. In 1858, J.S. Emerson removed burial objects from Kanupa cave and sold them to several museums. After obtaining the objects through federal burial law, members of several Hawaiian groups reburied them into Kanupa in 2003. "The State of Hawai'i views any looting of Hawaiian burials sites as extraordinarily serious," Attorney General Mark Bennett said. "We will criminally prosecute thieves and looters to the full extent of the law." If convicted, Taylor could face up to 10 years in prison and a $25,000 fine. The indictment marks the first time the state will prosecute an individual allegedly involved in the removal of Hawaiian burial objects from Kanupa cave. In 2006, Taylor and Carta both pleaded guilty to the same federal charge of conspiracy to traffic Native American cultural items in violation of federal burial law for their involvement in the Kanupa cave incident. Carta was sentenced to one year in prison by a federal judge, but abruptly died in March before he could serve any time. Taylor is currently awaiting sentencing in federal court, and faces up to one-year imprisonment and a fine up to $100,000. A federal public defender, however, told the Honolulu Advertiser that the new state charge should be thrown out because it violates a state double jeopardy law. "This is polkieal, and it's disgusting, said Alexander Silvert, the first assistant federal public defender. S