A Montana man has been given a year’s probation and ordered to pay nearly $7,200 restitution for damaging a Native American rock art panel in the Black Hills National Forest near Edgemont in March 2019.
56-year-old Balgaroslav “Bobby” Latinow of Missoula, pled guilty in October to Destruction of Government Property and Unauthorized Damage and Defacement of Archaeological Resource.
The rock art site is in Red Canyon and is on the National Register of Historic Places.
Court documents say that Latinow carved a date, his first and last names, and his wife’s first name into the rock. The carvings were about an inch deep and covered an area 20-inches wide and 10-inches tall.
The markings weren’t discovered for more than two months. A U-S Forest Service Archaeologist found them on May 30, 2019, with Latinow’s name leading investigators to him. He was indicted by a federal grand jury in June of last year.