© The Associated Press/ U.S. Attorney Office For The Southern District Of New York This photo released by the U.S. Attorney's office shows the fossil of a Tyrannosaurus bataar dinosaur at the center of a lawsuit demanding its return to Mongolia. Florida resident Eric Prokopi has pleaded guilty, Thursday, Dec. 27, 2012, at Federal Court in New York to smuggling this fossil and others into the United States. In return for his cooperation, prosecutors say they will recommend leniency.
A Florida fossils dealer pleaded guilty to smuggling charges Thursday and agreed to give up a celebrated $1 million dinosaur skeleton seized by the U.S. government earlier this year for its eventual return to Mongolia.
Eric Prokopi, 38, said he would surrender the 70 million-year-old
Tyrannosaurus bataar skeleton known as "Ty" and give up any claims to six other dinosaurs and various other bones in a cooperation deal that might win him leniency from charges that carry a potential prison sentence of up to 17 years.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Martin S. Bell read a list of the dinosaurs to Magistrate Judge Ronald L. Ellis, saying a second substantially complete Tyrannosaurus skeleton was found at Prokopi's Gainesville, Fla., home, while a third was believed to be in Great Britain.
Bell said the government will also get to keep a Chinese flying dinosaur that Prokopi illegally imported; a skeleton of a Saurolophus, a duckbilled, plant eating dinosaur from the late Cretaceous period; and two Oviraptor skeletons, one found at Prokopi's home and the other at another residential dwelling in Florida. The Oviraptors have parrot-like skulls.
"It's among the larger dinosaur shopping lists you'll see today," Bell told the magistrate judge.
In a release, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said: "Fossils and ancient skeletal remains are part of the fabric of a country's natural history and cultural heritage, and black marketers like Prokopi who illegally export and sell these wonders, steal a slice of that history. We are pleased that we can now begin the process of returning these prehistoric fossils to their countries of origin."
