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Ex-employee convicted of stealing from Pensacola naval air museum

August 15, 2005

The Associated Press
PENSACOLA, Fla.
A former employee was convicted Monday of stealing medals, citations and a
Mercury astronaut's boot from the National Museum of Naval Aviation and
selling them on the Internet.

A six-member jury took two hours to find Sherrie Shaw, 43, guilty of theft,
forgery and dealing in stolen property.

Circuit Judge Linda Nobles said sentencing would be set after Sept. 14. Shaw
could face a penalty ranging from probation to 20 years in prison, the
Pensacola News Journal reported.

The former Navy corpsman denied the two medals belonged to the museum,
claiming they were part of a personal collection she began as a child. One
is a Purple Heart and the other a rare Navy Cross issued only during the
early 1940's and known as the "Black Widow" because a manufacturing error
gave it a dark finish.

According to trial witnesses, the items sold on the popular eBay site to
out-of-state buyers for more than $3,000.

Shaw said she was unaware that the citations with the medals, which made
them more valuable, belonged to the museum when she sold them.

"They somehow got mixed in," she testified Friday. "I don't know how the
citations ended up where they did."

Shaw said the astronaut boot was in bad condition and was going to be thrown
out when she received permission from Robert "Buddy" Macon, the museum's
deputy director, to take it. Macon denied giving her the boot, according to
the Pensacola News Journal.

The two medals, citations and boot were sold at auction in 2002 and 2003 on
eBay.

Authorities said they also found other museum items, including books,
manuals, photographs and posters, at her home in nearby Pace.

Shaw, who cleaned and preserved artifacts at the museum from 1991 until she
resigned in March 2003, said she had borrowed, not stolen, the cache.

"My intent was to send it back, and it was in a box to go back to the
museum," she testified.

Assistant State Attorney Russell Edgar said Shaw had given various accounts
of why she wanted to sell her collection, telling some people it was for the
money and others that she wanted to avoid a conflict of interest with her
job.

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Information from: Pensacola News Journal,