ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Friday, June 21, 1996                  TAG: 9606210060
SECTION: VIRGINIA                 PAGE: B-3  EDITION: METRO 
DATELINE: CHARLOTTESVILLE
SOURCE: Associated Press 

MAN PLEADS GUILTY TO MAP THEFTS

A Florida man pleaded guilty to transporting stolen goods across state lines in a plea agreement that led to the return of 140 rare maps, books and other documents stolen from libraries along the East Coast.

Prosecutors said Gilbert J. Bland Jr., 46, of Boca Raton, Fla., cut the maps out of 16th-and 17th-century books while posing as a researcher and using a false name.

About a half-dozen maps, worth about $30,000, were stolen from the University of Virginia library in early December.

``An integral aspect of the plea is the fact Mr. Bland was helpful in locating the documents,'' U.S. Attorney Robert Crouch said Wednesday. ``If he had stonewalled, they would have been difficult to find.''

The documents, kept in a rented storage unit in West Palm Beach, Fla., were all recovered in good shape. They had been stolen from more than a dozen schools and are said to be worth about $200,000.

As part of the plea agreement, prosecutors will recommend that Bland receive the minimum sentence of about eight months. The felony carries a maximum of 10 years. Bland, who has spent six months in the Charlottesville Jail awaiting trial, was released Wednesday on a personal recognizance bond pending a sentencing hearing in October.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Rusty Fitzgerald said other schools, such as Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, also could bring charges against Bland.

As part of the plea agreement, prosecutors dropped charges of bringing stolen maps from Duke University into Virginia and stealing items of cultural significance from the UVa library. Those charges, both felonies, also could have been punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

An FBI investigation led to Bland's arrest in Florida on Jan. 2. He was caught in December at a Johns Hopkins library slicing a map from a book dating from the 1700s, but police let him go after he paid to repair the book.

In a bag Bland left behind, university officials found 12 other rare documents and maps, along with a list of universities, including UVa.

LENGTH: Short :   45 lines