Berkeley recovers Lawrence's Nobel medal; suspect arrested
BERKELEY -- A UC Berkeley biology student was arrested today on suspicion of stealing the first Nobel Prize the university ever received from 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, UC Berkeley police said.
The prize, awarded to the late physicist Ernest O. Lawrence for his invention of the cyclotron, had been in a publicly accessible, locked display case at the namesake Lawrence Hall of Science, located in the hills above the campus.
The Nobel was also the first ever given to a professor at a public university, according to UC Berkeley...
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.
Read entire article at San Francisco Chronicle
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, UC Berkeley police said.
The prize, awarded to the late physicist Ernest O. Lawrence for his invention of the cyclotron, had been in a publicly accessible, locked display case at the namesake Lawrence Hall of Science, located in the hills above the campus.
The Nobel was also the first ever given to a professor at a public university, according to UC Berkeley...
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.