Three representatives from the FBI's Art Theft Program faced tough questions — and some outright jeers — during a Monday night panel discussion in Santa Fe organized by the Antique Tribal Art Dealers Association.

Speaking generally about art theft were Bonnie Magness-Gardner, program manager for the FBI Art Theft Program in Washington, D.C.; David Hall, an FBI art theft prosecutor in Delaware; and David Kice, an FBI art theft special agent in Santa Fe.

But when asked about the Four Corners busts of 2009, they declined comment.

In that case, 24 people were initially arrested on charges of trafficking in artifacts. Two more, including one accused of intimidating a witness, were later charged.

Carl and Mary Crites, both of Durango, Colo., pleaded guilty and received probated sentences last week for crimes involving a pair of Basket Maker sandals.

That leaves only two cases unresolved — involving David Waite of Albuquerque and Loran St. Claire of Monticello, Utah.

Last May, the widow of James Redd, a Blanding, Utah, physician who killed himself after being charged, filed a civil lawsuit, charging federal agents with "excessive, overreaching and abusive treatment" of her husband. According to the complaint, his "final words" — recorded shortly before he asphyxiated himself with a hose attached to his vehicle's exhaust — "connected his death to the defendants' egregious actions."

On Monday, Kice, who was involved with the Four Corners investigation, told the dealers group that changing the laws "is largely outside of our purview. ... We enforce the law."

Asked about his previous comment about wanting to see the legal trade in Native American artifacts dry up, Kice said the legal trade creates the illegal market. "It makes it much more difficult to do my job in finding those who are trafficking in looted art, illegal art," he said.

The traders, who maintain there is no significant black market in Native American artifacts, wanted to know where the FBI came up with their "multibillion dollar" figure for the illegal trade — cited in a story last year in Pasatiempo, the weekly arts, entertainment and culture magazine published by The New Mexican.

Magness-Gardner said that's a British estimate of the international trade in all illegal art — much of it from a few large museum heists. She recalled only one case involving American Indian artifacts other than the Four Corners cases.

Hall explained how various federal statues apply to the trade in Native American artifacts. He said trade in human remains and funerary items clearly is illegal, while it is more difficult to identify what federal law calls "objects of cultural patrimony" — usually items that are supposed to be owned by a tribe rather than an individual.

Kice drew laughs from the group when he asked for help in identifying illicit artifacts.

"The point that's been made to me many times and often by people in this room, [is] that 'You guys went after the wrong people. You didn't get the right guy,' " he said. "Well, nobody's telling me who the right guys are. ... The people in this room know who the major players are trading illicit artifacts.

"If you want to remove the stigma of the antiquities trader, help law enforcement get rid of the bad apples, which I assume is a very small segment, but they do exist."