Librarian Admits National Archives Thefts
Denning McTague, 40, pleaded guilty April 4 to one federal count of stealing government property in the theft of some 165 documents related to the Civil War from the National Archives branch in Philadelphia and offering them for sale on Ebay. McTague, a former local history librarian at Nyack (N.Y.) Library, has since aided in the recovery of all but three of the stolen items, which may be taken into consideration when he is sentenced July 12 to as long as 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.
McTague admitted to removing the items in summer 2006 while he was interning at the National Archives in preparation for a presentation commemorating the Civil War’s sesquicentennial. He tucked the stolen documents, valued altogether at some $30,000, into a yellow note pad, which he put in his backpack.
It was his attempt to sell a May 4, 1865 telegram about President Abraham Lincoln’s death, dated on the day of his funeral, that led to the discovery of the thefts last September. Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, book publisher Dean Thomas compared the digital image of the telegram on McTague’s website (since taken down) to a photocopy of the original that he had made some 20 years earlier, and found an exact match between telltale smudges. “I thought the archives was either having a sale or it was stolen,” Thomas said in the April 5 Philadelphia Inquirer. “And I knew the archives wasn’t having a sale.”
Characterizing the thefts as “a significant crime against all of us,” U.S. Attorney Patrick L. Meehan asserted, “This is property that belongs to the people of the United States and is meant to be preserved, not sold to the highest bidder.” All the buyers traced by authorities have since returned the stolen items. The three missing documents are valued at a total of $180.
Nyack Library Director James Mahoney told American Libraries that McTague said he was relocating to Philadelphia when he resigned his local history post in December 2006 after two years’ service. After the story broke about the thefts, Mahoney said that McTague assured him “nothing was ever taken from Nyack,” which was verified by a subsequent inventory. “It’s extremely bewildering that he felt such temptation in Philadelphia,” Mahoney asserted.
Posted on April 6, 2007.
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