CNN
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Two Henderson, Nevada, males have been indicted and are set to face trial for allegedly damaging historic rock formations at Lake Mead.

Payden David Man Cosper and Wyatt Clifford Fain had been arraigned on Friday and each males pleaded not responsible to at least one rely of damage and depredation of presidency property.

In response to allegations within the indictment and an announcement from the US Legal professional’s Workplace, on April 7, 2024, the boys pushed chunks of historic rock formations over the sting of a cliff close to the Redstone Dunes Path on the Lake Mead Nationwide Recreation Space, inflicting injury in extra of $1,000.

“There have been no indicators posted on the entrance prohibiting pushing rocks or that it was a federally a protected web site,” stated Ross Goodman, an lawyer representing Cosper.

“Mr. Cosper didn’t have any information that pushing a boulder was illegal till the US Marshalls confirmed up [at] his home 4 months later,” Goodman stated in an announcement to CNN.

CNN has reached out to Fain’s lawyer for remark.

A jury trial is ready for October 8, 2024. The defendants might every withstand 10 years in jail, if convicted, in keeping with a launch from the US Legal professional’s Workplace, District of Nevada.

The Nationwide Park Service investigated the case, in keeping with the US Legal professional’s Workplace.  The lads had been arrested by the USA Marshals Service.

Park rangers sought the general public’s assist in April in figuring out the suspects within the incident, which was captured on video.

Injury to the federally protected formations, which had been formed over time out of 140-million-year-old sand dunes, is irreversible. Recreation space spokesperson John Haynes referred to as the destruction “appalling.”

“Why on earth would you do that to this space that’s so lovely? It’s considered one of my favourite locations within the park they usually’re up there simply destroying it. I don’t perceive that,” Haynes informed CNN affiliate KVVU in April.

The huge recreation space covers 1.5 million acres of breathtaking mountain views, canyon trails and two important reservoirs that reach throughout the Nevada and Arizona border. Water sports activities on the Lake Mead reservoir are a significant draw for the park’s 6 million annual guests, however excessive drought within the West has brought on the lake’s water ranges to plummet lately, exposing sunken boats and several other units of human stays.

Stephen Watts contributed to this report.