Rancher Sells Dinosaur Bones
For $8.4 Million, Tax-Free

WASHINGTON — A major U.S. oil company once used a dinosaur as a mascot, symbolizing that its product originated with ancient fossils. Landowners whose hopes for a petroleum-related windfall have been dashed by dry holes might do better to hope for a dinosaur instead.

A Sioux Indian rancher has become a multimillionaire from the sale of such a fossil, and his ethnic status means he won’t even have to pay income tax on the deal.

The dinosaur, a Tyrannosaurus Rex nicknamed "Sue," was held in trust for Maurice Williams by the government, and because Williams is an Indian, the sale of such assets are tax exempt, said Thomas Sweeney, a spokesman for the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

The BIA manages Indian land and resources in trust much as a parent would control a child's assets.

Williams’ home state of South Dakota has no state income tax.

The fossil, which was found on land near Faith, S.D., in 1990, was auctioned week before last to the Chicago Museum of Natural History for $8.4 million.

That includes a buyer's premium of about $760,000. Williams will have to pay the Sotheby's auction house a two percent commission plus an undisclosed amount for expenses, auctioneer David Redden said after the sale.

Williams, who lives on the Cheyenne River Reservation, will receive the first of four installments within 30 days, Redden said. He'll get the rest over the next three years.

He won't have an agent or attorney to pay either, since the BIA acted as Williams' agent and can't recover its costs.

"He is the direct beneficiary and the only beneficiary," Sweeney said.

The BIA is out $3000 for the cost of storing the fossil at the order of a federal court that awarded the fossil to Williams, Sweeney said. The judge made no provision for the BIA to recover that money.

The T-Rex, named "Sue" in honor of discoverer Susan Hendrickson, is 90 percent complete, making it the finest T-Rex specimen ever recovered; only four others are more than 60 percent complete.

Though patronizing and somewhat insulting in this day and age, laws allowing the federal government to hold property in trust for Indians are designed to help make sure no one takes advantage of them, said Bob Mandel, first assistant U.S. attorney for South Dakota.

"It worked pretty well in this case," said Mandel dryly.