[meteorite-list] Two NASA Interns Avoid Prison Time In Moon Rocks Theft

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:16:30 2004
Message-ID: <200308071447.HAA10959_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/custom/space/orl-locmoonrock07080703aug07,0,1977700.story

2 avoid prison time in moon-rocks theft

By Henry Pierson Curtis
Orlando Sentinel
August 7, 2003

Two NASA interns convicted of stealing moon rocks worth at least $5.1
million last summer avoided prison Wednesday, thanks to their remorse,
academic achievement and lack of criminal records.

Shae Saur and Tiffany Fowler each received three years of probation when
U.S. District Judge Anne C. Conway ruled society would be better served by
having the women continue their studies.

"If this isn't a case of aberrant behavior, I don't know what is," Conway
said during their sentencing hearings in federal court in Orlando.

Saur, 20, an A student, completed two years of college credits during her
last two years of high school in Beaumont, Texas. A student at Lamar
University, she was in the midst of her second National Aeronautics and
Space Administration engineering internship when she got into trouble.

Fowler, 23, had just graduated with a degree in biology from Texas Lutheran
University when she received the prestigious appointment for a NASA
internship. A former Junior College Distinguished Academic All-American, she
had been a track and volleyball star in Odessa, Texas.

They were arrested in July 2002 after Thad Roberts, a fellow summer intern
at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, persuaded them to join him in a
theft that rocked NASA's research community.

The trio broke into a laboratory on July 13, 2002, and carried away a
cabinet filled with research notes and a 600-pound safe containing about
four ounces of moon rock fragments and pieces of meteorites.

An investigation by the FBI showed Saur and Fowler were minor players who
were lured to join the conspiracy by Roberts, 26, a charismatic,
thrill-seeking colleague. Held without bail in the Lake County Jail since
his arrest, Roberts has been writing an autobiographical screenplay about
the heist, according to testimony.

Taking part in the crime ended promising career paths that might have led
the women to become astronauts. The convictions exclude them from many
fields of science where felons who stole research materials would not be
welcome.

"Being an astronaut is something I had planned to do and aspired to do my
entire life. My own actions have shattered that dream," Saur said before
being sentenced. "I regret everything that I've done, and I never regretted
anything more."

Fowler, Roberts, and a fourth conspirator, Gordon McWhorter, were arrested
in Orlando when they tried to sell the collection to FBI agents posing as
rock collectors. Saur was arrested afterward in Texas.

They were charged with conspiracy to commit theft and interstate
transportation of stolen property. Saur, Fowler and Roberts pleaded guilty
in December.

Defense lawyers agreed to stipulate that the moon rocks were worth at least
$5.1 million.

That value was based on the $50,800-a-gram cost that taxpayers paid in 1973
dollars to collect the specimens during Apollo lunar missions in the 1960s
and 1970s. In 2003 dollars, each gram would be worth $206,000 or about $21
million, according to data provided by the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank.

"I would liken it to owning a piece of Plymouth Rock, but on an
interplanetary scale," said Robert Pearlman, editor of collectspace.com, an
Internet site for collectors of space memorabilia. "I would say it would be
worth much more than that if it was offered legally."

A Martian meteorite chip stolen in the heist was valued at $1.8 million.
Known as "ALH84001," the meteorite is thought by scientists to show signs of
possible life on Mars.

The ramifications of the theft went beyond dollar value.

Stolen along with the extraterrestrial specimens were notebooks containing
33 years of research by a senior NASA scientist. They have not been
recovered. The scientist, Everett K. Gibson Jr., has declined to comment on
the damage done to his life's work until after Roberts and McWhorter, 27,
are sentenced later this year.

Conway announced from the bench Wednesday that she is considering just the
opposite for Roberts -- giving him a harsher than recommended sentence for
stealing what she described earlier as "national treasures."

Roberts and McWhorter, who was convicted at trial, face up to 25 years in
prison. McWhorter is set to be sentenced Aug. 27. Roberts will follow in
September.

Conway said she may sentence Roberts to a second, consecutive term in prison
for an unrelated theft of dinosaur bones in his home state of Utah.

In sentencing Saur and Fowler to less than the recommended punishment,
Conway used a legal provision that recognizes aberrant behavior and lack of
participation in the planning of a nonviolent crime.

The two women could have received about four years in prison. With credit
for helping the prosecution of McWhorter and less time for aberrant
behavior, they will serve six months of house arrest as part of their
probation, perform 150 hours of community service and pay back their part or
all of $9,000 of restitution to NASA.

Henry Pierson Curtis can be reached at 407-420-5257 or
hcurtis_at_orlandosentinel.com.
Received on Thu 07 Aug 2003 10:47:44 AM PDT