Becker spent “hundreds upon hundreds of hours” collecting the Devonian age marine invertebrate fossils from the High Mountain area of Wayne, New Jersey, the suit says.
Becker needed to send the priceless collection to his colleague in Florida to move forward with the project, the lawsuit says.
On June 18, Becker packaged about 200 fossils into 19 separate boxes, which was about 80% of his collection, the suit says.
Boone told Becker that he would receive tracking and insurance information, but Becker claims he never received it, according to the lawsuit.
In the following weeks, the suit says, Becker's colleague in Florida informed him that the fossils never arrived.
On Sept. 20, Boone advised Becker that the fossil packages were possibly being held at the UPS fraud department, according to the lawsuit.
“Our client learned that the packages were dumped at an unidentified landfill somewhere in or around Nashville, Tennessee,” the suit says. »
