A sharp (but unnamed) librarian at Western Washington University did the job of putting two and two together; a) maps and plates cut out of rare old books and b) someone named ‘montanasilver’ selling same on ebay…
Now James Lyman Brubaker, 74, of Great Falls MT has plead guilty in federal court Monday to charges that he stole (a lot of) rare library books with the intent of re-selling them. A search warrant was obtained and executed at the Brubaker residence based on the WWU investigation. During the search, law enforcement discovered approximately 1,000 books of which 832 were suspected of being stolen from university libraries in Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming and Alberta Canada.
That’s insane!
That’s insane! So, did he travel different states “collecting” all those books? I gotta google some more on this.