[meteorite-list] Three Plead Guilty In Moon Rock Scheme

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 09:53:37 2004
Message-ID: <200212270102.RAA19362_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/space/12/24/moon.rocks/index.html

Three plead guilty in moon rock scheme
By Richard Stenger
CNN
December 24, 2002

ORLANDO, Florida (CNN) -- Three
college interns pleaded guilty to charges in
connection with the disappearance of
moon rocks and meteorites valued at more
than $1 million, which later turned up for
sale on the Internet, NASA announced this
week.

The trio worked at NASA's Johnson Space
Center this summer when a 600-pound safe
with lunar samples and martian meteorites
vanished from the Houston facility, the space
agency said.

In July, posing as potential customers, special
agents with the FBI and NASA Office of
Inspector General arrested Tiffany Fowler,
Gordon McWhorter and Thad Roberts in a
Florida restaurant. An alleged accomplice,
Shae Saur, was arrested in Houston the same
day.

This month, Fowler, Roberts and Saur
pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to
commit theft and interstate transportation of
stolen property.

McWhorter, a college acquaintance of
Roberts who did not work for NASA, is
scheduled to go on trial for the same charges
in January.

The sting operation came after an advertisement
was reportedly placed on the Web site of the
Mineralogy Club of Antwerp, offering lunar
specimens for $1,000 to $5,000 a gram.

The undercover agents had set up the Orlando
meeting after using e-mail to communicate
with one of the suspects, who claimed to have
the "world's largest private and verifiable
Apollo rock collection," NASA said.

During the meeting, the students described how
they had stolen the safe with the rocks and
hauled it into a sports utility vehicle.

Astronauts with the Apollo missions collected
the moon rocks in the late 1960s and early
1970s.
Received on Thu 26 Dec 2002 08:02:29 PM PST