ORLANDO - The last of four NASA interns convicted of stealing moon rocks and trying to sell them was sentenced Wednesday to eight years and four months in prison.
Thad Roberts, 26, pleaded guilty last December to stealing the rocks, valued at $2.5-million to $7-million.
Roberts must serve three years' probation and do 150 hours of community service after prison.
Roberts offered to sell moon rocks collected by Apollo astronauts in 1969 and the early 1970s for $1,000 to $5,000 a gram. Investigators found out about him and his co-conspirators after they placed an ad in May 2002 on the Web site of a Belgian mineralogy club.
It wasn't till two months later that the 600-pound safe containing rocks from every Apollo mission was discovered missing from the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
The stolen items were recovered at an Orlando hotel after undercover FBI agents used e-mails to negotiate their purchase.
Roberts' fellow interns, Gordon Sean McWhorter, Tiffany Fowler and Shae Sauer, also were convicted. McWhorter was sentenced to five years and 10 months in jail. Fowler and Sauer were sentenced to 180 days' house arrest and ordered to pay more than $9,000 restitution to the space agency.
