Calling libraries the protectors of the nation's social, cultural, and scientific heritage, U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan sentenced Daniel Spiegelman on April 24 to five years in prison for stealing $1.3 million in rare documents from Columbia University's Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
Kaplan said he hoped the sentence would send a message to others who threaten "irreplaceable intellectual and cultural resources," according to an April 24 Associated Press report.
Spiegelman admitted in April 1997 to stealing presidential letters, medieval manuscripts, and Arabic documents while using a student ID. He was extradited in November 1996 from the Netherlands, where he was trying to sell some of the papers.
Posted May 4, 1998.