By Shane Benjamin
Herald Staff Writer

A Cortez woman who was caught almost four years ago disturbing a San Juan National Forest archaeological site was sentenced to eight months in prison Wednesday for failing to comply with conditions of her probation.

Tammy Woosley, 43, began crying when U.S. Magistrate David L. West read the verdict. Her two sons, one 12 and the other 21, were also in tears.

Woosley was facing five months to 11 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to multiple probation violations. She failed to report to authorities as ordered by the court, failed to submit monthly reports to authorities and failed to participate in drug treatment on several occasions, said Robert T. Kennedy, assistant U.S. Attorney.

Woosley was serving two years of probation for digging up nearly 1,000-year-old bones of an ancestral Puebloan who lived on the site sometime between 950 and 1075.

She and a Dolores man, Danny Rose, were caught digging in sagebrush on the federally protected Reservoir Ruins archaeological site near McPhee Reservoir on Oct. 1, 2000.

On Tuesday, Woosley begged for her freedom, saying she is the sole care-provider for her 12-year-old son, she has post-traumatic stress disorder and she was recently diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

By staying out of prison, Woosley said she could care for her son and progress through drug therapy. Imprisonment, she said, would lead to regressive behavior and would cause her to have panic attacks.

Woosley said she does not have a job, partly because employers have fired her after learning about her charges. "I just can't seem to keep a job for some reason," she said.

Kennedy said Woosley has a "significant criminal history," with felony convictions in Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona. She has been placed on probation before, and she knows how it works, he said.

In 1993, Woosley was charged with murder for stabbing a man to death in Farmington. It was a domestic dispute, in which the man may have been stalking her and trying to attack her. She said the man lunged at her and fell onto a kitchen knife she was holding for protection. She eventually pleaded guilty to manslaughter.

Woosley also has been convicted of felony drug charges and felony use of a credit card, Kennedy said.

She has never served time in prison as a result of her crimes, Kennedy said.

Her lawyer, William Herringer, asked the judge to lower the sentencing range to three to nine months and then asked him to place her on home detention monitoring.

In her final statement to the judge, Woosley said, "I'm just worried about my son. … I should have done what I was told, I guess."

There were 25 seconds of silence in the courtroom as Judge West thought about how to sentence Woosley. He broke the silence by saying Woosley has been on probation before, and there is no reason to believe she didn't understand the seriousness of it. She pleaded guilty to four probation violations that constituted 10 separate incidents where she failed to comply, he said.

"Probation is an opportunity to avoid going to prison," West said, adding that the consequences for failing to meet the guidelines are real. "I think that it's appropriate that you do a jail sentence."

He gave her seven days worth of credit for time served.

Woosley must report to prison June 15. She said she plans to appeal.

Reach Staff Writer Shane Benjamin here .