WASHINGTON — A former National Archives employee
pleaded guilty Tuesday to selling on eBay sound recordings he stole from
the government, including a 1937 recording of Babe Ruth.
Leslie
Charles Waffen, 66, of Rockville, Md., pleaded guilty in federal court
in Greenbelt, Md., to embezzling government property, according to the
U.S. attorney’s office in Maryland.
Waffen, a
former chief of the Motion Picture, Sounds and Video Recording Branch of
the Special Media Archives Services Division, sold a copy of the
recording of Ruth on eBay in 2010 for $34.74, according to authorities.
The recording, which captures the baseball great on a hunting trip, was
recovered from the buyer.
Last fall authorities
seized at least 955 recordings belonging to the archives and worth at
least $30,000 from Waffen’s home, according to the U.S. Attorney’s
Office.
“While I am pleased that we are one step
closer to justice in this case, I am disappointed and angered by Mr.
Waffen’s violation of the trust placed in him by colleagues and the
American people to safeguard our nation’s history,” Archivist of the
United States David S. Ferriero said in a statement. “It is an outrage
that an employee entrusted with protecting our heritage became a threat
to those holdings.”
Ferriero said the archives has
tightened security at its facilities, including requiring officers to
check bags of visitors and staff alike — “including mine” — at the
Washington, D.C., and College Park, Md., facilities.
Sentencing for Waffen, who faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, is scheduled for March 5.
In
2007, a National Archives intern in Philadelphia was sentenced to 15
months in prison for stealing 164 Civil War documents, including the War
Department’s announcement of President Abraham Lincoln’s death — and
selling many of them on eBay.
The National
Archives recently recovered a handwritten document signed by Lincoln
that had been filched from the government, but it could not say when it
was taken or by whom. One expert speculated it might have been taken
decades ago.
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