Drew Today

William Scott Sentenced

Hearing concludes legal case that began with the theft of materials from Methodist Archives.

William Scott was sentenced today in United States District Court in Camden, N.J., for taking and offering for sale historical letters and artifacts from the Drew University Methodist Archives. He received three years probation and 300 hours of community service. In addition, he has paid the university $7,500 in restitution.

“The university is satisfied with this outcome,” said spokesman David Muha. “Mr. Scott stole irreplaceable historical documents and we don’t discount the seriousness of his crime. But our primary interest has always been the safe return of the missing items. Thanks to the excellent work of the F.B.I., all but one page of one letter have been recovered. We respect the court’s judgment that this is a suitable sentence for this crime.”

Scott took 31 letters and a small wooden box from the archive, where he was a student employee from the fall of 2009 through the discovery of the theft in March of 2010. The only item not recovered is the two-sided second page of a letter written by Charles Wesley in 1755. The archive retains a scan of the page.

“We received an apology from Mr. Scott,” Muha noted. “Part of being an educational institution is helping young adults learn and grow from their mistakes. The court has imposed its sentence and he has made restitution to the university. We hope that he learns from this incident.”

Following the incident last spring, a committee comprised of staff from the Drew library and the General Commission on Archives and History of The United Methodist Church met to review security procedures at the archive. A number of changes have been implemented to ensure the theft—the first to occur in the archival area of the building—is not repeated. These include the relocation of the most valuable items within the archive building to a special limited-access vault, the tightening of security protocols for student staff and increased supervision in the reading room.

Posted October 7, 2011