Breithaupt receives jail term

David Breithaupt, the former Kenyon library employee who pleaded guilty to selling items stolen from the special collections, has been sentenced to a year in prison. On Friday, May 6, Judge James L. Graham of the U.S. District Court for Southern Ohio sentenced Breithaupt to twelve months in federal prison, plus twelve months of probation.

In addition, he ordered Breithaupt to pay the College $50,284 in restitution. Breithaupt is to report to authorities to begin serving his prison term within thirty days.

Breithaupt had entered his guilty plea last December, as part of a plea agreement under which federal prosecutors expected him to help locate more of the rare books and other materials that disappeared from the library between 1998 and 2000. According to Christopher Barth, director of information resources, since the agreement Breithaupt has continued to be uncooperative and evasive, returning only nine volumes, of which only one (a first edition of Huckleberry Finn) has significant value. Previously, stolen materials had turned up for sale on eBay, and hundreds were found in Breithaupt's home.

The criminal penalty is in addition to a civil judgment, handed down by a jury in 2003, that ordered Breithaupt and his girlfriend, Christa Hupp, to pay Kenyon $1 million.