2 Texans Charged With Stealing Wreckage

In an effort to crack down on souvenir hunters, federal authorities Wednesday indicted two Texas residents on theft charges and announced a brief amnesty period during which people who took shuttle debris could return the wreckage without fear of prosecution.

The indictments and amnesty program are aimed at encouraging people, or scaring them, into returning shuttle parts.

“No one knows which piece of that shuttle will ultimately be the clue that unravels the mystery of what happened to those seven people that day, but every American has a responsibility to do what they can to help,” said Michael Shelby, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Texas. “Do not make this tragedy worse by your own selfishness. It is not only immoral, it is against the law.”

The FBI has about 20 ongoing investigations into the theft of shuttle wreckage. In addition, the agency is investigating 17 cases connected to Internet auctions of what people said was shuttle debris. Many of those cases, prosecutors said, involve possible wire fraud allegations.

Sheriff’s officials in East Texas said they suspect that more than 100 pieces of the spacecraft have been illegally collected by souvenir hunters.

The amnesty period ends at 5 p.m. CST Friday, authorities said.

“If you will notify a law enforcement official, turn the piece over and describe where you found the piece so the investigators can do their job, we will not prosecute you,” said Matthew D. Orwig, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Texas.

If people do not return wreckage they have taken by the deadline, federal prosecutors said they intend to crack down on violators as they did with the federal grand jury indictments that were handed up Wednesday.

Charged with stealing shuttle parts were: Merrie Savage Hipp, a 43-year-old Henderson woman, who allegedly stole a circuit board from Columbia shortly after it crashed; and, Bradley Justin Gaudet, a 23-year-old Nacogdoches man, who allegedly stole thermal barrier inner fabric the same day.

Hipp and Gaudet were arraigned Wednesday in Tyler. Both pleaded not guilty and were released on their own recognizance. They face up to 10 years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted, authorities said.

Prosecutors said the alleged thefts were unrelated. But they declined to discuss further details of the cases other than to say the parts had been recovered.

Shortly after Columbia reentered Earth’s atmosphere Saturday and broke apart, many people started looking for wreckage, most of them in an effort to assist investigators. But some people were seeking it either as keepsakes of a tragic moment in history or to make a profit. On the day of the crash, some people offered to sell on the Internet what they said was crash debris. Officials with EBay, the Internet auction site, said the postings were quickly taken down.

Since then, local and federal law enforcement agencies have received numerous calls from people with tips about others who may have stolen shuttle wreckage, which prosecutors contend remains federal property.

In Sabine County, where one of the largest debris fields has been found, Sheriff Tom Maddox said his deputies are working closely with the FBI investigating several cases of “someone has something they shouldn’t have.”

Many pieces of debris have been marked for identification but left unattended where they were found because of the limited resources of law enforcement, which is mainly concerned with guarding the most important parts of the wreckage and continuing the search for more.

Maddox said that at least one suspected theft in his county was a piece of debris that previously had been tagged but left unguarded.

The sheriff said he did not know what motive the suspected thieves in his jurisdiction might have had, but he said he abhorred the thought of wanting to collect debris.

“I’m disappointed in anyone who might want to keep a piece of this,” he said.

The search for wreckage continued Wednesday throughout East Texas and western Louisiana, but authorities said the effort was being hampered by cold and rainy weather.

Despite the inclement weather, additional parts were found and the craft’s nose, which landed near Hemphill, Texas, was recovered and shipped to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana.

On the theft charges, Hipp, a restaurateur, allegedly immediately retrieved the circuit board and gave it to police when she saw them arrive, according to one law enforcement source close to the investigation. Her attorney could not be reached for comment.

Gaudet, a college senior who is enrolled in the ROTC, reportedly told a friend that he did not know it was illegal to take the wreckage. Prosecutor Shelby scoffed at that suggestion during a news conference. “That’s silly and that’s ridiculous,” Shelby said. “There’s not a human being alive who has heard [anything] about the [disaster] ... that doesn’t understand that it’s wrong.”

And, Shelby said, the piece Gaudet allegedly took is a potentially vital one.

“The issue here is the thermal dynamics of the space shuttle, and any piece of the debris that deals with that is important....,” he said.

G. Patrick Black, the federal public defender for the Eastern District of Texas, said his client is an upstanding young man who is “extremely concerned about the allegations.”

Shelby said Gaudet and Hipp were not singled out.

“We had to start somewhere,” he said. “This is where it begins and we hope this is where it ends.”