[MSN] Berkeley student accused in theft of Nobel medal.

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Berkeley student accused in theft of Nobel medal
By Stuart Silverstein, Times Staff Writer
March 8, 2007 


UC Berkeley authorities believe they have solved the mystery of the missing
Nobel Prize medal.

Campus police, acting on a tip provided by a student, arrested a senior
biology major, Ian Michael Sanchez, on suspicion of grand theft Wednesday in
last week's disappearance of the 1939 Nobel medal won by nuclear physicist
Ernest O. Lawrence.

University police allege that Sanchez used a key to take the 23-karat-gold
award from a locked display case at UC Berkeley's Lawrence Hall of Science.
The hall is a museum in the Berkeley Hills, named after the late scientist,
where the 22-year-old student from Modesto was an employee.

According to investigators, Sanchez said he took the award on a whim. Linda
Schneider, a campus spokeswoman, said Sanchez had been placed on
"investigatory leave" from UC Berkeley.

The grand theft charge on which he was booked ordinarily carries a prison
sentence of up to three years.

The medal was returned to campus Wednesday, much to the relief of university
officials and the scientist's survivors.

The theft "was definitely a shock, and I'm very glad they got it back," said
Margaret Lawrence Norman, 70, of Long Beach, the scientist's second-eldest
child. "I'm praying that they will be able to protect it and have something
secure enough that this could never happen again."

Schneider said UC Berkeley was planning to put the medal in a more secure
setting when it is returned to Lawrence Hall in time for the 40th
commemoration of the facility in May 2008.

Along with a sense of relief, she said, there is "genuine sadness" that the
suspect was an employee.

"People have come up to me and said, 'I'm just devastated to hear this,' "
Schneider said.

Schneider said she believed that Lawrence's medal was the only such award
housed at UC Berkeley, whose faculty members have won 20 Nobel Prizes.
Lawrence, the inventor of the cyclotron atom-smashing device, was the first
of the winners.

Melted down, Schneider said, the medal is worth $4,200, but its actual value
is "incalculable."


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stuart.silverstein at latimes.com