Medal sale on EBay draws FBI’s interest

The EBay posting promised a unique bit of history: a Presidential Medal of Freedom made for James Lovell, commander of the nearly disastrous Apollo 13 space mission.

After two days of bidding in mid-January, the price had reached $5,000 and was rising.

“This really belongs in a museum for many to see,” the seller wrote. “YOU WILL NOT FIND ANOTHER ... EVER.”

The seller, a woman who frequently sells on EBay, found a taker: the FBI.

The red, white and blue decoration, highlighted by a five-pointed star and etched on the back with the name “James Arthur Lovell Jr.,” is in the possession of the FBI’s Chicago office. Agents are trying to solve the mystery of how it slipped away from the government.

Lovell was awarded a Medal of Freedom by President Nixon in 1970, but the version originally made for him came out blemished. Government officials held that medal back to destroy it, but it somehow wound up in the hands of a woman in suburban Philadelphia and, 37 years later, was for sale on the Internet.

The FBI seized it in January after Lovell’s attorney alerted authorities to the Internet sale. No charges have been filed, but an investigation is ongoing, said FBI Special Agent Brian Brusokas, who investigates cyber crimes.

“The best and most important thing is that we have the medal,” Brusokas said. “But we’re trying to figure out what happened in the first place.”

Brusokas said Lovell voiced concerns that the sale was “discrediting the medal as well as himself.”

Since 1945, hundreds of people have been awarded the Medal of Freedom, one of the highest honors the president can bestow upon a civilian. This is believed to be the first time that a version thought to have been destroyed has turned up.

In a brief statement, Lovell said he was “very happy that the FBI has recovered the Medal of Freedom with my name etched on the reverse.”

“I am very proud to be a recipient of our nation’s highest civilian award,” he said.

He was not available for further comment.

Brusokas said the medal came to the FBI’s attention in January, when a friend of the retired astronaut found the object for sale. That person contacted Lovell, he said.

Brusokas said EBay willingly removed the posting, which featured long passages about Lovell’s history and a brief synopsis of how it had ended up in the possession of the owner after imperfections were supposedly found in the box crafted to hold the medal.

“This ‘original’ version was destined for the trash, but lucky for us it was saved 37 years ago,” the woman wrote. “It was then given to my father, and then to me.”

She wrote that several government and military officials told her selling the medal was legal and that “I have communicated with Mr. Lovell [and] he assures me that the original is safely secured in a museum.”

Reached at her home, the woman selling the medal declined to comment. The Tribune is not identifying her because she has not been charged with a crime.

Within days of EBay taking down the posting, it was back up, minus the references to Lovell. Instead, the seller said she would only reveal the astronaut’s name by e-mail. Thirteen bidders quickly got the price up to $2,250 in the second auction.

When Brusokas learned the medal was again for sale, he said, he called the woman and told her she was selling something not legally hers -- and therefore breaking the law. He declined to discuss further details of how the woman acquired the medal, but said she surrendered it to a Pennsylvania agent.

“I’ll just say she was cooperative,” he said. “We have the medal to prove it.”