Biology student arrested in theft of Nobel Prize

A UC Berkeley biology student was arrested today on suspicion of stealing the first Nobel Prize the university ever received, a medallion that had been in a display case at the Lawrence Hall of Science, campus police said.

Ian Michael Sanchez, 22, a senior who worked at the hands-on science museum, was taken into custody today and booked on suspicion of felony grand theft for allegedly stealing the 23-karat gold medal -- worth $4,200 -- on Wednesday, UC Berkeley police said.

Sanchez was being held in lieu of $10,000 bail at Santa Rita Jail in Dublin and could be formally charged Thursday.

The prize was returned to its rightful owners at a press conference this afternoon.

"You want to sign for it?" UC Berkeley police Detective Bruce Bauer asked Susan Gregory, the hall's deputy director, shortly before returning the medal to her. "So here we are," Bauer said, holding the medal up for a crush of reporters.

"We're very pleased to have the Nobel Prize back," Gregory said. "We're very sad that it turned out to be a student."

The prize, awarded to the late physicist Ernest O. Lawrence for his invention of the cyclotron, had been in a publicly accessible but locked display case at the namesake Lawrence Hall of Science, located in the hills above the campus.

The Nobel was the first ever given to a professor at a public university, according to UC Berkeley.

UC Berkeley police received a tip about the theft that led them to Sanchez, who was cooperative after being confronted, said Lt. Doug Wing. Sanchez told police that he took the medal "on a whim" after using a key to open the display case, authorities said. Police, however, believe he forced the lock open.

"It seems like very bad judgment," Gregory said. "I'm sorry that he made that choice."

Sanchez is a member of a fraternity, but there was no evidence that the theft was a prank or related to the Greek system on campus, Wing said. Sanchez kept the medal at his room in the fraternity and later "had it hidden off-site," said Wing, declining to elaborate.

Sanchez admitted to police that he stole the medal at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday during normal visiting hours, Wing said.

Several days later, Sanchez showed off the medal to friends, one of whom notified campus police, Wing said.

Employees discovered the theft Thursday morning after finding that the lock on the case was broken. UC Berkeley police distributed fliers, put out a bulletin over a national law-enforcement teletype and even contacted Interpol, Bauer said.

Sanchez could face separate student-conduct charges that could lead to suspension or expulsion from the university. He has been put on leave from his job at the museum, where he had worked for about a year. It was unclear whether it was a paid or unpaid leave.

The medal will be kept in a safe location until it's unveiled in a more secure display as part of the hall's 40th anniversary in May 2008, Gregory said. Plans for the updated display were under way before the theft, authorities said.

Hall officials already conduct background checks on students who handle cash, and the theft may prompt officials to screen "exhibit facilitators" like Sanchez, Gregory said. Still, she noted, the museum currently has about 100 student employees and has hired students for 39 years.

"These are Cal students, after all, the best in the country," Gregory said.

Lawrence was the first UC Berkeley faculty member to win a Nobel Prize, awarded to him in 1939 for physics. He later became a major figure in the development of the atomic bomb during World War II.

The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore and the science museum -- dedicated to educating schoolchildren -- all bear his name.

Lawrence died in 1958 at the age of 57.

After his wife, Molly, died in 2003, the family gave many of the awards to the museum, said Linda Schneider, Lawrence Hall of Science spokeswoman.

"The hall is really the memorial to Dad, and I'm really glad that the medal is back at the hall and UC Berkeley, where it belongs," Lawrence's daughter, Barbara Petit, said in a statement.

Said Gregory, "It was really awful to have to call them and tell them that the medal was gone."

Hall officials had offered a $2,500 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction in the case, but it was too soon to determine whether anyone would receive it, officials said.

The medal, which weighs about 7 ounces and is 2-Â 1/2 inches in diameter, bears a picture of Alfred Nobel on the front and the Latin phrase Inventas vitam juvat excoluisse per artes, loosely translated as, "And they who bettered life on Earth by their newly found mastery."

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