[CPProt.net] Va. Man Admits to Stealing, Selling Documents From National Archives

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Va. Man Admits to Stealing, Selling Documents From National Archives 

By Karlyn Barker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 8, 2005; Page B02 


A Virginia man who had research access to the National Archives pleaded
guilty yesterday to stealing more than 100 Civil War-era documents from the
historic records depository, including letters from Jefferson Davis, Robert
E. Lee, William Tecumseh Sherman and George Armstrong Custer.

In his plea agreement, Howard W. Harner Jr., 68, of Staunton, Va., said that
he received more than $47,000 from the illegal sale of many of the
documents. About 40 items have been recovered, according to an Archives
official.

"We became aware of this because a researcher alerted us to the fact that a
document in our holdings was being sold," said Paul Brachfeld, the Archives
inspector general. 

Harner pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Washington to one count of
stealing major artwork and will be sentenced May 26. He faces a possible
prison term of up to 10 years and a fine of $250,000. Under federal
sentencing guidelines, his probable prison term will be 24 to 30 months,
according to federal prosecutors.

Reached by phone at his Virginia home yesterday, Harner declined comment on
the case.

Internal investigative reports made public last year showed that this was
not the only case involving lost, stolen or misplaced materials. The reports
revealed that hundreds of letters and photographs were missing from the
National Archives and Records Administration and its regional offices,
including a presidential library. 

U.S. Attorney Kenneth L. Wainstein said that Harner received a "researcher
identification card" in 1996 and periodically through 2002 visited the
Archives building on Pennsylvania Avenue NW in downtown Washington, where he
was given access to boxes of documents. Among the contents, according to
court documents, were letters written between 1848 and 1866 by various
military officers and government officials involved in the Civil War and
westward expansion of the United States.

Harner stole 118 documents by hiding them in his clothing, according to
Wainstein and Sarah T. Chasson, an assistant U.S. attorney who is
prosecuting the case. He later sold many of them to a single private
collector, who was not named in the court documents, and placed others for
sale through the Butterfields auction house.

Brachfeld, the inspector general, described Harner as a collector and
researcher who was particularly interested in pre-Civil War military
officers, "people who became famous later on in life" during and after the
war. The thefts came to the attention of Archives officials in 2003 when
Harner sold a letter written by Confederate Brig. Gen. Lewis A. Armistead
that was worth more than $5,000.

Brachfeld said researchers are not permitted to bring coats or briefcases
into the research rooms. More recently, the Archives installed hidden
cameras in research rooms, elevated the desks there and tightened procedures
for receiving researcher identification cards.

"You want to be security conscious, but there is also some reticence about
doing bodily searches," Brachfeld said. 

At his swearing-in ceremony yesterday, Allan Weinstein, the new U.S.
Archivist, announced plans to thoroughly review security issues, including
the loss of documents through thefts or mishandling.

"We have zero tolerance for any kind of theft," said National Archives
spokeswoman Susan Cooper. "The new archivist said he has only anger and
contempt for those who abuse the privilege" of Archives research.

Staff researcher Bobbye Pratt contributed to this report. 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/