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Stolen Yale Documents RetrievedSome of the documents stolen from the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University have been recovered by police in a raid on a house in Hamden, Connecticut, where the alleged thief’s parents live. Benjamin W. Johnson, 21, a University of Wisconsin/Madison student, was arrested in October in connection with the theft of more than $2 million worth of historical documents and valuable early editions of such famous American novels as Moby Dick, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and The Catcher in the Rye. The thefts allegedly occurred while Johnson held a summer job at the library. According to the December 3 Yale Daily News, some of the documents with signatures of historical figures such as John Hancock, Abraham Lincoln, and Isaac Newton had already been cut apart to sell the signatures separately. Johnson is currently free on $50,000 bail. Yale English Professor Amy Hungerford told the Daily News that the damaged items were priceless. “It’s not just the works that are gone,” she said. “Pieces of scholarship disappear with them.” Posted December 10, 2001. |
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