Two Bay Area men face years in prison on suspicion of first-degree property damage in Missouri after allegedly roughhousing inside a natural history museum and forcing a mammoth tusk fossil to fall onto the floor. Both men are from Petaluma and are scheduled to appear before a Taney County judge next month.
According to court documents, the men were visiting the Ancient Ozarks Natural History Museum outside Branson, Missouri, on March 8 when one of the men, 46, allegedly agreed to hop onto the shoulders of his 48-year-old friend. An officer with the Taney County Sheriff’s Office wrote in a probable cause statement that the man on the shoulders then allegedly reached out to grab on to a 200-pound wooly mammoth tusk, leading it to fall and break into multiple pieces on the ground.
An employee with the museum said they saw the event unfold on a security monitor around 10:50 p.m. After the employee attempted to make contact with the men, they allegedly ran outside. Sheriff Brad Daniels told SFGATE on Monday that the two Petaluma men were arrested that night and booked into jail.
The Taney County Prosecutor’s Office charged them with one count each of first-degree property damage the following day. Each man was later released on a $15,000 surety bond…