Charges over scout leaders' destruction of 170m-year-old Utah rock formation

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Two former Boy Scouts of America leaders who touched off worldwide

outrage by toppling a 170m-year-old rock formation at a Utah

state park last year have been charged with felony criminal

mischief.

A video of the incident posted on YouTube in October showed Glenn

Taylor dislodging a massive boulder from its spindly rock pedestal in

Goblin Valley state park, as fellow scout leader David Hall filmed him

while laughing and singing.

Taylor, 45, is charged with felony criminal mischief and Hall, 42,

faces one count of felony aiding and assisting in criminal mischief, the director of Utah state parks, Fred Hayes, said in a statement.

If convicted, each man could face up to five years in prison, a fine

of $5,000 and restitution for damages to Utah's protected natural

resources.

The men were stripped of their leadership positions with the Boy

Scouts of America after the video surfaced, igniting a furore and

flooding the state parks office with angry calls and emails.

"From literally from around the world. Folks who have either been

there [to Goblin Valley state park] or even just seen pictures of it,"

Hayes told Reuters at the time.

National Boy Scouts officials said they condemned the vandalism

because it violated the organisation's "leave no trace" ethic that seeks

to preserve natural areas.

Taylor and Hall did not immediately respond to requests for comment

on Friday. They told park officials last year that the boulder was a

safety hazard they remedied by knocking down.

Utah state parks spokesman Eugene Swalberg has said the agency did not consider the rock a danger.

It was one of thousands of sedimentary rock formations, dating to

the late Jurassic era and known as goblins, that were carved over

millennia by water erosion and windblown dust in the popular park in the

high desert of south-eastern Utah.