An FBI affidavit concerning the recent theft of moon rocks asserts that a University of Utah junior and two other defendants admitted stealing the NASA treasures.
The affidavit was filed before Magistrate Thomas B. McCoun in U.S. District Court at Tampa, Fla. It gives unprecedented details of the case federal agents are trying to make against U. physics student Thad Ryan Roberts, 25, and three others.
In another development, the Deseret News has learned that defendant Gordon Sean McWhorter, 26, is also from Utah and is awaiting trial in Provo on an unrelated assault charge. McWhorter is not listed as admitting anything in the moon rocks affidavit.
Roberts; McWhorter; Tiffany Brooke Fowler, 22; and Shae Lynn Saur, 19, face charges of conspiracy to steal government property. All but Saur also are charged with interstate transportation of stolen property.
Roberts, Fowler and McWhorter were student employees of the Johnson Space Center, Houston. Roberts told people at the University of Utah that he intended to become an astronaut and he expressed interest in going to Mars.
An affidavit by FBI Special Agent Wayne Nichols Nance Jr., filed before McCoun, says the agent posed as a potential buyer for moon rocks after an advertisement for lunar samples was placed on the Web site of the Mineralogy Club of Antwerp, Belgium. Posted on May 24, the ad begins, "Priceless Moon Rocks Now Available!"
The court document recounts a string of e-mail communications between Nichols (who used the fake name Lynn Briley) and the seller, who called himself Orb Robinson. Officials of the NASA Office of Inspector General say e-mail messages in the case were sent from the University of Utah, the Space Center and a public library in Houston.
"If you can provide valid proof that these rocks are really lunar samples, I would be willing to buy if the price does not exceed 800$/gram for rocks under 10 grams and 600$/gram for larger specimens," responded a Belgian who was working with the FBI.
A man going by the handle "Orb Robinson" wrote back that he could do better than that, getting the price down to $300 per gram for rocks that are between 0.85 and 1.5 kilograms in weight.
Around the weekend of July 12-14, a 600-pound safe containing lunar rocks was stolen from the Space Center. It contained samples from every Apollo mission that landed on the moon.
The samples' academic value for research, as opposed to its value to collectors, was pegged at $1 million.
After Roberts, McWhorter and Fowler were arrested in the FBI sting, Nance wrote, "Roberts waived his Miranda rights (the right to have a lawyer present) and admitted, among other things, that he had posed as Orb Robinson and that he had sent e-mails" attempting to sell the moon rocks.
"Roberts stated that both Fowler and Saur had helped him steal the safe from JSC (Johnson Space Center) and load it into a Jeep Cherokee sport utility vehicle," says the affidavit.
"Roberts further stated that he and Fowler rented a motel room in Clearlake, Texas, where they took the safe and opened it. Thereafter, Roberts stated, he and Fowler discarded the safe in two different locations, and then placed the contents of the safe that they believed were 'junk' in a storage unit being used by Saur in Beaumont, Texas."
A dramatic scene related in the affidavit took place in a restaurant in Orlando, Fla.
About 6:15 p.m. on July 20 — which happened to be the anniversary of the first moon landing in 1969 — an undercover FBI agent met Roberts at Italianni's restaurant in Orlando, the affidavit says. The agent was pretending to be a potential buyer named Lynn Briley.
"Roberts . . . identified himself as 'Orb.' . . . (He) described for the UCA (undercover agent) how he and his friends had stolen the safe containing the lunar samples. Roberts even showed the UCA a bruise on his right arm that he said he had received in the course of removing the safe."
Nance wrote that Roberts said two others who knew about the theft and transportation of the samples were present in the restaurant. "He said that one of the two people was his girlfriend and that she had driven with him from Houston, Texas, and that the other person had flown to Orlando."
After this discussion, another FBI agent posing as the first agent's husband, plus Fowler and McWhorter, joined them at the table, the affidavit says.
"McWhorter looked at Roberts and asked, 'Did you tell them how many grams we got?' " relates the affidavit.
"Roberts shook his head and said that they had obtained 113 grams of lunar samples."
The group then went to the Sheraton Hotel, where the supposed buyers were to look at lunar samples and decide which they wanted to buy for $100,000.
"When both vehicles pulled into the Sheraton Hotel parking lot, other agents arrested Roberts, McWhorter and Fowler."
The lunar samples were recovered.
Roberts and Fowler waived their Miranda rights and told agents of their involvement in the theft, says the action. Later, in Houston, Saur waived her Miranda rights too, reportedly admitting she helped Roberts and Fowler steal the safe.
"Saur also took agents to the storage unit in Beaumont, Texas, and consented to a search of the storage unit. Saur turned over a white trunk and a box, which contained materials taken from the stolen safe, located inside the storage unit."
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