Anatomy of a Campus Heist

Summary

HISTORY This Week – Episode: Anatomy of a Campus Heist

Introduction

In the gripping episode titled "Anatomy of a Campus Heist," released on February 3, 2025, the HISTORY® Channel's "HISTORY This Week" delves deep into a daring and meticulously planned theft that shook the academic community of Lexington, Kentucky. This detailed summary encapsulates the key points, discussions, insights, and conclusions from the episode, offering a comprehensive overview for listeners and newcomers alike.

Background: The Setting

The story unfolds around Transylvania University, a private liberal arts institution renowned for its impressive collection of rare books. Among its treasures is John James R. Audubon's four-volume series, Birds of America, an original copy of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species, and several illuminated manuscripts dating back to the 1400s. BJ Gooch, the special collections librarian with nearly three decades of experience, serves as the primary custodian of these invaluable items.

The Recruit: Seeds of a Heist

The narrative introduces Eric Borsick, a student from the nearby University of Kentucky, who becomes entangled in a web of ambition and misguided thrill-seeking. Warren Lipka, Eric's high school friend, approaches him with a bold proposition:

[08:27] Ryan Reynolds (Eric Borsick): "One day, one of my friends had the bright idea that they wanted to rob it."

Warren, inspired by the allure of rare manuscripts and influenced by the cinematic grandeur of heist films like Ocean’s Eleven, persuades Eric to join the plan to steal valuable books from Transylvania University's Special Collections Museum.

Planning the Heist: From Fantasy to Reality

The group—comprising Warren, Eric, Spencer Reinhardt, and Chaz Allen II—embarks on extensive reconnaissance and planning. They immerse themselves in research, drawing parallels between their scheme and high-profile heists depicted in popular media. Despite initial skepticism, the group's enthusiasm swells as they believe they're orchestrating a flawless operation.

[10:00] Ryan Reynolds (Eric Borsick): "It sounded sort of exciting, so I just said, yes."

The First Attempt: A Failed Operation

On December 16, 2004, the crew executes their first attempt. Warren, under the alias Walter Beckman, arranges an appointment with BJ Gooch to gain access to the rare books. Their plan involves disguising themselves as elderly men to avoid recognition and subduing Gooch to seize the manuscripts. However, unforeseen complications arise:

[14:22] Ryan Reynolds (Eric Borsick): "I mean, my whole issue was always, I don't want to be involved with any kind of curator or librarian being tied up or anything like that."

The disguise fails, drawing immediate suspicion. Librarian Susan Brown catches sight of the perpetrators, prompting a frantic abort of the mission. The group escapes, leaving behind the stolen books and their credibility in tatters.

Escalation and Second Attempt: Crossing the Line

Despite the initial failure, the crew becomes obsessed with their heist fantasy. Encouraged by their belief in the plan's ultimate success, they attempt a second mission. This time, Warren attends the appointment alone, meticulously laying the groundwork for the theft. The tension culminates when Eric finds himself involuntarily involved in the act:

[22:07] Ryan Reynolds (Eric Borsick): "At that point, we had already crossed the line in my mind. I'm thinking, well, it doesn't matter now. I'm a part of this."

BJ Gooch is forcibly subdued using a stun device, marking a definitive moral and ethical boundary crossed by Eric. The heist spirals out of control as the perpetrators struggle to carry the hefty and valuable manuscripts, leading to their eventual capture.

The Arrest: Facing Consequences

On February 11, 2005, law enforcement storms the bungalow housing the perpetrators as they attempt a getaway. Overwhelmed by fear and reality, Eric chooses to face the consequences rather than flee:

[34:11] Ryan Reynolds (Eric Borsick): "I just had to answer that question and decide that I just needed to, like, face up to this and just get this whole other life started, which was going to be prison and jail."

Eric is promptly arrested, marking the end of their audacious venture and the beginning of a challenging legal battle.

Aftermath: Judicial Proceedings and Sentencing

In December 2005, the four individuals—Eric, Warren, Spencer, and Chaz—appear before a Lexington courtroom to face charges including the theft of cultural artifacts and interstate transportation of stolen property. BJ Gooch, the victim, provides a poignant victim statement, detailing the psychological trauma inflicted upon her:

[35:19] BJ Gooch: "They kept saying I was okay, that I wasn't injured. I had a big bruise on my arm from the stun device, and I had some marks on my wrist where my wrists had been bound. But otherwise, physically, I was okay. But, boy, I was just really hurt psychologically."

Ultimately, each defendant receives a seven-year federal prison sentence, underscoring the severity of their actions.

Reflections and Remorse: A Path to Redemption

Post-incarceration, Eric Borsick reflects on his past with deep remorse. He acknowledges the lasting harm caused to BJ Gooch and expresses regret over his youthful naivety:

[37:54] Ryan Reynolds (Eric Borsick): "I definitely regret the pain that I've caused people. The librarian, my family, anyone who had to suffer from this crime."

Eric credits his prison experience with shaping him into a better person, though he recognizes the profound personal and societal costs of his decisions. His memoir, American Animals: A True Crime Memoir, delves into the complexities of their misguided motivations and the tragic outcomes that ensued.

Conclusions: Lessons from a Lost Opportunity

The episode concludes with a poignant irony: the perpetrators' appreciation for the very manuscripts they sought to steal. Their inability to channel this appreciation into legitimate means of engagement led to devastating consequences. The heist serves as a cautionary tale about ambition, the allure of illicit gains, and the irreversible impact of crossing ethical boundaries.

[39:53] Ryan Reynolds (Eric Borsick): "After we stole these things, we used to stay up late at night reading them and just, like, knowing that we would never hold anything so beautiful and valuable ever again."

Notable Quotes

• Eric Borsick: "Maybe like halfway through the year... what does that even mean? What's the purpose of this if you're getting caught?" ([11:35])
• BJ Gooch: "When I was attacked up there, it was very much a personal violation of what I thought was personal space." ([35:48])
• Eric Borsick: "I definitely regret the pain that I've caused people. The librarian, my family, anyone who had to suffer from this crime." ([37:54])

Conclusion

"Anatomy of a Campus Heist" is a compelling exploration of ambition gone awry, the fragile line between fantasy and reality, and the enduring consequences of unethical decisions. Through interviews with key individuals like BJ Gooch and Eric Borsick, the episode offers a multifaceted perspective on a crime that intertwined personal motivations with broader societal implications. This narrative not only recounts the events of the heist but also invites listeners to reflect on the deeper moral lessons embedded within.

For more insights and historical analyses, stay tuned to "HISTORY This Week" and visit historythisweekpodcast.com.

Transcript

[Ryan Reynolds]

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[Eric Borsick]

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[BJ Gooch]

Well, the Audubons are simply beautiful.

[Eric Borsick]

BJ Gooch was the special collections librarian at Transy for nearly 30 years. She's recently retired. She says the gem of the collection at Transy was John James R. Audubon's four volume series, Birds of America.

[BJ Gooch]

Their size is so dramatic. I mean, it's about the size of a large coffee table. And it was Audubon's intention to make the birds look alive.

[Eric Borsick]

When I talked to Gooch, she said the books in Trancy's collection felt almost alive to her. She spent a lot of time alone with them. They were almost her companions.

[BJ Gooch]

People ask me if I miss working, and I say, I don't really miss working, but I miss the collections. I miss taking care of those incredible collections.

[Eric Borsick]

It was her job to protect them. That's pretty much how a book ended up under Gooch's care. If it needed special protection, special handling because it was valuable, or one of a kind. An illuminated manuscript from the 1400s, those Audubons, which were worth millions of dollars. But Gooch says you don't just keep books like that locked up in a temperature controlled vault.

[BJ Gooch]

As a Special Collections librarian, you have to walk a fine line between preserving something and providing access to it. And I always tried to err on the side of providing access. And one thing I loved about my job was I got to help all sorts of people. It wasn't just academics. I had a garden club group visit once who wanted me to pull some old botany books. And I had such fun pulling these books. A group of women arrived. They spent the whole afternoon there just oohing and ahhing over these books.

[Eric Borsick]

She also spent a lot of time with students. She'd give them tours of the collection, trying to spark their interest. And one day, a routine visit sets off a chain of events that will end up changing Gooch's life forever. The visitor is a Transy student.

[BJ Gooch]

Spencer Reinhardt says he was part of a tour when he was a freshman that came up. And supposedly he's the one who told his buddies about, you know, these incredible books and special collections.

[Ryan Reynolds]

One day, one of my friends had the bright idea that they wanted to rob it.

[Eric Borsick]

This is Eric Borsick, one of the buddies who gets recruited for the Heist in 2004. Eric is a student not at Transy but at nearby University of Kentucky. He knows another student there named Warren Lipka. And Warren is High school friends with Spencer Reinhardt, that transy student, the one who had gone on a Special Collections tour and realized, wow, there is some really valuable stuff just sitting here in Special Collections. Warren contacts Eric in the spring. He says, hey, I'm planning a heist. He explains his plan to steal rare books from the Special Collections Museum at Transylvania University. Tells Eric, you should join me. I've already laid the groundwork.

[Ryan Reynolds]

He had gone to Amsterdam and established contacts with black market dealers there that they said they could unload the stuff to.

[Eric Borsick]

Once we had it, it all sounded really weird, Eric says. It kind of didn't seem real.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Warren always had a lot of schemes and ideas, and I at first just assumed this was another one of them and it'll probably never happen.

[Eric Borsick]

But Eric was a little bored. Life felt kind of dull. He'd been living in a bland Kentucky suburb, only to find himself shuttled off to a college campus with nice manicured lawns, kind of exactly where he expected to be. He was like planning a heist would be something different.

[Ryan Reynolds]

It sounded sort of exciting, so I just said, yes.

[Eric Borsick]

Eric is in along with Warren and Spencer and soon a fourth guy, Chaz Allen ii. They're a four man crew, hanging out together in the bungalow near the Kentucky campus where Eric and Warren rent rooms, smoking weed and talking kind of idly about how to make this thing happen.

[Ryan Reynolds]

First task, reconnaissance.

[Eric Borsick]

They literally watch the heist movie Ocean's Eleven for inspiration.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I want to know everything that's going on in all three casinos, from the rotation of the dealers to the path of every cash card. I want to know everything about every guard, every watcher, anyone with a security path. I think we kind of just kept pushing this fantasy of it along further and further, never actually believing that we would actually rob a museum.

[Eric Borsick]

Still, they're doing recon, putting together some actual plans.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Over the course of a year. We would have like, meetings about the heist. And, you know, at first it was just kind of like a joke, but then it's just getting more and more serious.

[Eric Borsick]

Eric says he was starting to get sucked into the fantasy. He remembers one moment in particular during the planning phase when he said something that surprised him.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Maybe like halfway through the year. One night I suddenly just said something to the group. Even if we get caught for this, I still think it'll be worth it. And I kind of stopped after I said that. And I was thinking, what does that even mean? What's the purpose of this if you're getting caught? And so that really caused me to take a Step back and think about, oh, well, clearly we're all doing this for something else. It's really not about the money. It's about this sense of escape.

[Eric Borsick]

When Eric and I talked, he told me that it's honestly still kind of a mystery to him how this fantasy got pushed into actual reality. The best he can explain it, they were college freshmen with romantic ideas about living some kind of bold, nonconformist life. A heist would be a shortcut to that kind of life.

[Ryan Reynolds]

It just kind of snowballed into what happened.

[Eric Borsick]

So what was the plan?

[Ryan Reynolds]

Initially, they wanted to go in at night and kind of break in. And that seemed very oceans 11y and cool and, okay, no one gets hurt and all that. But we realized pretty quickly that the security there was just really too much.

[Eric Borsick]

But during the day, during the day.

[Ryan Reynolds]

All you had to do is just get an appointment to get in. The problem then being that there was always a librarian who was always in the museum during the appointments.

[Eric Borsick]

A librarian? BJ Gooch.

[BJ Gooch]

Well, Warren Lipka made the appointment, and he used an alias, of course.

[Eric Borsick]

He calls himself Walter Beckman. Gooch gets an email from this Beckman saying, a friend told me about the amazing books you have. I'd love to come see them.

[BJ Gooch]

I didn't think anything of it because I was used to getting requests that way. I was used to setting up appointments for researchers that way. The problem was that we had trouble setting up a specific day and time. And I remember being very apologetic because my schedule was unpredictable. So I'd had to cancel on him maybe once.

[Eric Borsick]

Ugh. And you felt apologetic? Does it make you angry in retrospect?

[BJ Gooch]

Uh, yeah, it does.

[Eric Borsick]

Eventually, the appointment is on the books. Eric says the plan was this. Warren and Spencer will show up for Walter Beckman's appointment with BJ Gooch. They'll disguise themselves as old men so that no one will recognize them. They'll go up to the rare book room on the upper floor, and they'll subdue BJ Gooch somehow take her down. Then they'll call in Eric Borsick and Chaz Allen to help carry the books and drive away.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I mean, my whole issue was always, I don't want to be involved with any kind of curator or librarian being tied up or anything like that.

[Eric Borsick]

Eric says he didn't want to be there for that part, the part with the librarian.

[Ryan Reynolds]

It was never the plan that she would get hurt. It was the plan that Warren would deal with her. And that was something that I didn't have to be a Part of be in the room or even really know what he meant by that. And so I think that really caused me to kind of keep going along with this idea. It was sort of like my way of justifying it to myself. I think, okay, well, no one's gonna get hurt. I'm not involved in anyone hurt. And so.

[Eric Borsick]

Well, but I guess, I mean, those are slightly different, right? Like, did you, when you say justify. Like, did you feel guilty about knowing that this was gonna happen or bad about it, even though you, you know, the plan was that you weren't gonna be there?

[Ryan Reynolds]

I mean, I say justify the fact that I didn't have to be in the room. Not that it was right. It's just. That's how I justify it in my mind.

[Eric Borsick]

On December 16th, they're ready to do it. Bring the plan from fantasy to reality.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I think everything that could have gone wrong that day did.

[BJ Gooch]

I had an appointment with Walter Beckman for that afternoon. I think three or something like that.

[Ryan Reynolds]

It was like two days before Christmas break, yet the place was packed. Everyone must have been cramming for final exams. And we were planning on it being empty that day.

[BJ Gooch]

I had a meeting with someone in the reading room. I remember checking my watch and saying, well, you know, I'm going to have to stop because I have an appointment. Who's coming in? And right as I said that, I see these two guys, I think, if I remember correctly, coming up the steps, and they were dressed very oddly.

[Ryan Reynolds]

It was pretty obvious very quickly that we were not going to pass as old men.

[BJ Gooch]

There were people talking about them going through the library. They thought they were someone from the drama department, you know, like, it was toward the end of the semester, you know, doing something crazy.

[Ryan Reynolds]

And so everything immediately was like, okay, this isn't working. We need to abort this mission.

[Eric Borsick]

The crew retreats.

[Ryan Reynolds]

So, yeah, we took off. And definitely a huge sense of relief that we had not just committed this major crime. I went home and had dinner with my family that night and just distinctly remember looking around the dinner table and just kind of, like, feeling this sense of relief. Like, if I had gone through with that earlier, who knows what would have happened? I could be in jail and just kind of thinking about what it would have done to my family.

[Eric Borsick]

I mean, but it's interesting because, like, you guys don't turn around, then, like, you feel the relief, and then you go right back the next day. Right?

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yeah, I definitely wasn't planning on that. But, yeah, that changed really quickly once I got home after dinner.

[Eric Borsick]

Eric Heads back to the bungalow where he's met by Warren Spencer and Chaz.

[Ryan Reynolds]

The rest of the guys are all waiting for me. They've got a new plan. And I could see that everyone was in agreement this is what they wanted to do. They thought it was a good idea.

[Eric Borsick]

It doesn't take long before he's convinced to try again.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I finally said, okay, why?

[Eric Borsick]

Was it loyalty or what was it?

[Ryan Reynolds]

I think, seeing how confident they were about it, that they wanted to go through with it. And then also, you know, having spent this past year thinking about this thing constantly, it was like this obsession that we kept just pushing along further and further.

[Eric Borsick]

The new plan is a lot like the old plan, except they're going to lose the bad disguises. Warren, still using the alias Walter Beckman, reschedules his appointment with BJ Gooch for the following morning. Just him. And this time he shows up at Special Collections.

[BJ Gooch]

He appears at my door. I've never seen him until this day. And my first thought was that he was a lot younger than I had imagined him to be, because his emails made him sound like someone maybe 30s, maybe or 40s. And this guy was obviously younger than that.

[Eric Borsick]

She also notices that he's dressed wrong for the weather. It's pretty warm outside, but he has on a heavy coat and a toboggan, a warm hat, kind of like a beanie.

[BJ Gooch]

And he seemed very nervous and very tense. Some people are like that when you first meet them. So I just thought it was my job to make him feel more comfortable. So I had him sign our guest register. I have the books laid out in the Rare book room that he had asked to see.

[Eric Borsick]

He's asked to see some of the library's most frequent valuable books. An original copy of Charles Darwin's on the origin of species, 500-year-old horticultural volumes and illuminated manuscripts, and John James Audubon's massive set of illustrated prints, Birds of America. Gooch and Warren, AKA Beckman, are in the reading room. Oak tables, leather covered chairs. And Gooch leads him through a set of double doors to the Rare Book Room.

[BJ Gooch]

And he's looking at the books and he's making the appropriate remarks about how beautiful they are or how impressive they are. And then he says, do you mind if I call a friend? He would just, you know, love seeing these. And I think he's, you know, he's on campus. So I remember hesitating a little bit, but I said, okay, that'll be fine.

[Eric Borsick]

Warren calls Eric.

[BJ Gooch]

So he makes a phone call and just very Quickly, someone else is at the door, and it's Eric Borsuk, who calls himself John. He also seemed very nervous.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I was just, like, just dumbstruck.

[Eric Borsick]

Eric says he is shocked to see Gooch answer the door. She was supposed to be subdued.

[BJ Gooch]

He came in. I got him to sign the guest register.

[Ryan Reynolds]

She's trying to make small talk with me, and I'm thinking to myself, like, what's going on? Is Warren backing out? Like, maybe he couldn't do it. So now we're just gonna, like, go on a tour of the museum and then just leave? Or maybe I should just leave.

[Eric Borsick]

He doesn't leave.

[BJ Gooch]

All three of us go back into the Rare Book Room, and I was standing between the two of them.

[Eric Borsick]

Warren Lipka makes his move with a stun pen.

[BJ Gooch]

This is when things started happening very quickly. Lipka took out a stun device, started pressing it into my right arm.

[Eric Borsick]

The stun pen fires an electric shock into Gooch's body. 150,000 volts.

[BJ Gooch]

I remember feeling really weak and falling to the floor, and I'm thinking, what are they doing? You know? And then it hit him. I said, they're gonna rob us.

[Eric Borsick]

There's nothing she can do to stop it.

[BJ Gooch]

They get me on the floor. They tie my hands with zip ties. Behind my back, in my feet. They put the toboggan that Lipka had been wearing over my head, my eyes and nose. They try to put duct tape on my mouth, but it won't stick. And they're frustrated by that. Then they just start loading up, and I think I must have said something to them. And Lipka tells me not to talk or it will just hurt more or something like that, But I'm terrified. I really thought I might. I might not survive.

[Eric Borsick]

Eric and Warren are now standing over an immobilized BJ Gooch in the Rare Book Room. The treasures of the library are still spread out on tables around them.

[Ryan Reynolds]

At that point, we had already. The line had been crossed in my mind. I'm thinking, well, it doesn't matter now. I'm a part of this. However much I justified it to myself that I wouldn't have to be a part of this. My actions and planning this heist led to it.

[Eric Borsick]

Wow. So that's kind of like when the reality really hits you.

[Ryan Reynolds]

That is definitely when the reality really hit me. And I don't say it figuratively. I literally felt my life change in that moment. I mean, it was like a train just switching tracks, and I knew that life would never be the same again. After that, because of the line that we had crossed. It's one that I don't think you really come back with.

[Eric Borsick]

Is it a moral one?

[Ryan Reynolds]

For me it's a moral line.

[Eric Borsick]

A line he crossed when he took those zip ties and used them to tie up BJ Gooch. Warren and Eric stuff the smaller books into their backpacks. The 54 pound Audubon volumes they wrap in bed sheets. But the size and weight of the books makes them very awkward to carry, even for two young men. They manage to lug them into the elevator and ride down to the main floor.

[Ryan Reynolds]

And of course, right when the elevator door opens up, one of the other librarians who works there sees us. She just immediately knows something's wrong.

[Eric Borsick]

Librarian Susan Brown starts walking toward Warren and Eric. She shouts at them to stop. They get back in the elevator, start frantically hitting buttons.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Elevator goes down to the basement and we're kind of panicking like, oh God, yeah, we're trapped down here because we knew there wasn't a trail door down there.

[Eric Borsick]

So Eric and Warren head back up to the main floor.

[Ryan Reynolds]

We just start making our way to the planned exit route, which was through a fire escape door where the van was waiting for us outside.

[Eric Borsick]

Meanwhile, BJ Gooch is still tied up in the rare book room on the upper floor.

[BJ Gooch]

I was thinking, how will anybody know I'm up here? Is it Friday? How am I going to get loose? My heart felt like it was going to pound out of my chest.

[Eric Borsick]

She manages to crawl to her office.

[BJ Gooch]

I'm on my hands and knees trying to dial my boss, Susan Brown, to let her know what's going on. But I'm shaking so bad I can't hardly do it.

[Eric Borsick]

And then who should open the door but Susan herself.

[BJ Gooch]

And I just look at her and I said, susan, they're robbing us. And she took off like a bat out of hell. Pardon my fridge.

[Eric Borsick]

Susan Brown runs down the staircase to the main floor where she spots Warren and Eric.

[Ryan Reynolds]

And that's when I just hear this like blood curling scream. What the hell are you guys doing? And it was the librarian who had caught up to us. And she just starts barreling down the staircase at us. And she, he was clearly intent on like taking us out, tackling us.

[Eric Borsick]

Eric freezes.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Suddenly I feel worn. Just like grabbing my shoulder, he was like, come on, come on, just drop the books.

[Eric Borsick]

The Audubons are weighing them down. So they drop the precious volumes on the floor. They run as fast as they can from Susan Brown and make it outside to chaz in the getaway car.

[Ryan Reynolds]

He sees us bursting at the doors and he's like, oh, I can see it on his face. He starts putting in reverse.

[Eric Borsick]

Warren and Eric fling themselves into the car.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Meanwhile, the librarian catches up to us and starts pounding on the windows. And she's screaming at us.

[Eric Borsick]

The car screeches away.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I remember Warren's got his head out the window and he's throwing up. You know, I can see the vomit just like streaking down the windows. I'm in the back like, what the hell is going on? I mean, definitely one of the craziest moments of my life for sure.

[Eric Borsick]

The young men flee the scene of their crime. Once again, they've made a mess of things. But in the backpacks at their feet is a set of rare books worth nearly three quarters of a million dollars. This episode is brought to you by Amazon. Sometimes the most painful part of getting sick is the getting better part. Waiting on hold for an appointment, sitting in crowded waiting rooms, standing in line at the pharmacy. That's painful. Amazon One Medical and Amazon Pharmacy remove those painful parts of getting better with things like 247 virtual visits and prescriptions delivered to your door. Thanks to Amazon Pharmacy and Amazon One Medical Healthcare just got less painful. December 2004. Police swarm Transylvania University's campus in Lexington, Kentucky, searching for the perpetrators of the so called transy book heist.

[BJ Gooch]

Well, I remember when the police showed up. One of the first things I told them was that I had kept the email that Walter Beckman had sent me, which was normal for me. I do it just, you know, so I'll have a record of what someone has asked for.

[Eric Borsick]

That email is the crucial lead.

[BJ Gooch]

They took my keyboard, you know, computer, everything. I realized at that time, oh, they think I might be a suspect, I bet. But I went to the police, spent hours there working with a police sketch artist into just relating in detail what had happened. I drove myself home after the police station. I was a mess. So remember I couldn't go see my mom cause I was just too shaken and I told my husband to please tell her I had a migraine. I couldn't come visit. So I went to see her the next day and life resumed.

[Eric Borsick]

When Gooch returns to work, she and Susan Brown try to put together good discrete of the books so that other libraries and auction houses can keep an eye out. But they don't have a lot of hope.

[BJ Gooch]

Our first thought was that a collector had paid these guys to steal the books and we'd never see them again.

[Eric Borsick]

Meanwhile, the thieves have the Books. But there is something they need to do before they can actually sell them to their black market contact. Oddly, they need to have the books appraised. They need someone to officially say how much the books are worth. Someone legit.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Christie's is.

[E]

It's not my opinion, it's the world's opinion, I think, fair to say one of the greatest auction houses in the world.

[Eric Borsick]

Tom Leckie worked for Christie's auction house in the early aughts. He was a specialist in printed books and manuscripts. In December 2004, he receives an email from a man named Walter Beckman asking for an appointment. It'll be a standard appraisal that involves looking through the book to make sure it's authentic, not a fake, to make sure it's not damaged and take notes on where it comes from, that all.

[E]

The pages are there, that any illustrations that should be in it are there. Another part of that process is its ownership. Does this book smell like something that shouldn't be in my hands? Is it supposed to be someplace else? What is its history?

[Eric Borsick]

It can be hard to tell.

[E]

Books, especially books that have been around a long time, they've lived colorful lives, let's say they've lived through wars, they've lived through famines, floods, fires.

[Eric Borsick]

And books don't always come with detailed records.

[E]

They don't carry their stories with them. There's no letter that says where it came from. There's no booklet that says who owned it. There's no ownership inscription. It just moves through time and it moves from place to place and it ends up where it is now. And that's only where it'll be temporarily. It's not going to be there forever.

[Eric Borsick]

Lecky tells Walter Beckman, sure, come on in. But at the last minute, he has to ask a colleague to cover the meeting for him. And later he asks her, how'd it go? She says, actually, there were a few red flags. The two men were dressed oddly, like they were trying to make themselves seem older. And they knew almost nothing about the origins of the books. But they did make sure to ask the big question. So how much could we get for these? Lecky's colleague wouldn't say.

[E]

No values or estimates or anything were shared at that point because it was.

[Eric Borsick]

Preliminary and that was that.

[E]

Except they gave her their email address and cell phone number. We never heard back, but I said, keep that piece of paper.

[Eric Borsick]

Warren and Spencer tell Eric and Chaz about this meeting, how they didn't really get anything out of it. And Eric says he senses that something isn't right.

[Ryan Reynolds]

They're just acting really guarded and closed off. And eventually I got out of Spencer that he had realized after the fact that he gave someone there his real phone number. And that could actually really come back to hurt us.

[Eric Borsick]

It certainly could. The guys just try to live their normal lives, but they sense that the authorities are closing in. And in fact, pretty soon after that, Christie's meeting. The FBI matches Walter Beckman's emails to BJ Gooch with Walter Beckman's emails to Christie's auction house. And they trace those emails to a computer lab on the University of Kentucky's campus. When they contact Christie's, they're able to get surveillance footage of Warren and Spencer, and they get Spencer's real phone number. The FBI puts Warren and Spencer under surveillance. Eric says Spencer's convinced they've even assigned undercover agents to his classes.

[Ryan Reynolds]

We were all living in pretty deep states of paranoia.

[Eric Borsick]

Eric has dropped out of college. He knows it's only a matter of time. Someday soon, the jig is going to be up.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I used to go to bed fully dressed in a sweatsuit and my shoes tied because I was just, like, waiting for the day to come.

[Eric Borsick]

The wait ends in the early morning of February 11, 2005.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I just remember suddenly one night waking up, just standing up straight up out of bed because I had heard this loud bang at the front door. And at first I thought I was dreaming because it was exactly like what I had always envisioned it sounding like and feeling like, and I was just, like, frozen that it was actually reality, not just my imagination.

[Eric Borsick]

A SWAT team storms the house, throwing flash grenades and shouting at the people inside.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I lived in an extension of the house, and they clearly didn't know that I was back there. And so I was just sitting back there in the darkness, just listening to everything that's going on in the house. Everyone being arrested and FBI agents, police officers shouting. And I always had this escape route sort of planned out where I would make a short jump out my window, and our house backed up to the university track and fuel complex, and I would slip through this hole in the fence and, you know, just be gone through that complex.

[Eric Borsick]

Eric now faces a choice, one he has to make without Warren, Spencer, and Chaz.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I had one leg out the door, and I'm thinking, like, do I really want to do this? Do I really want to be on the run now? And I kind of had this moment where I just had to answer that question and decide that I just needed to, like, face up to this and just get this whole other life started, which was going to be prison and jail.

[Eric Borsick]

Eric pulls his leg back inside and walks out of his little annex into the main part of the bungalow, where he's arrested on the spot. December 2005. Eric, Warren, Spencer and Chaz sit in a Lexington courtroom. They've each pleaded guilty to six federal charges, including theft of cultural artifacts from a public museum and interstate transportation of stolen property. Now it's time to receive their sentences. In the room with them is BJ Gooch, rare book librarian at Transylvania University, the woman they'd knocked to the floor with a jolt of electricity. Then bound and gagged, she writes a victim statement for the judge and testifies at the hearing.

[BJ Gooch]

I described the events, how it made me feel, how terrified I'd been.

[Eric Borsick]

She also talks about how deeply she's been affected by her assault, which she feels the media has downplayed in its coverage of the robbery.

[BJ Gooch]

They kept saying I was okay, that I wasn't injured. I had a big bruise on my arm from the stun device, and I had some marks on my wrist where my wrists had been bound. But otherwise, physically, I was okay. But, boy, I was just really hurt psychologically.

[Eric Borsick]

Remember, Gooch spent so much time in that rare book room, often alone. But for the books, it had been a comforting, largely private place.

[BJ Gooch]

When I was attacked up there, it was very much a personal violation of what I thought as personal space. I felt as if someone had come into my home and attacked me.

[Eric Borsick]

Eric, Warren, Spencer and Chaz are sentenced to seven years in federal prison. BJ Gooch tries to move on with her life. There are some good things. Her mother, who'd been sick, actually makes a miraculous recovery, and Gooch returns to her job. But it's hard. She feels anxious at work, scared. Her boss assigned some students to work with her, but Gooch is really struggling.

[BJ Gooch]

I remember one day this researcher came in who was using some books from the medical collection, and the researcher had asked me to copy some things for him. So I went to the back room, and while I'm back there with the photocopier, I realized I was standing there planning escape routes in my head. If he had a knife and he attacked the student or me, how we would get out and I would have dreams at night about people attacking me. So it was really tough.

[Eric Borsick]

What did you feel and think when you learned about who had done this?

[BJ Gooch]

I felt like these were entitled, troubled kids who wanted to be rich and famous in as easy a way as they possibly could. I mean, they didn't Want to work for what they wanted. They just wanted to take it. To be honest, I don't know if I understand where they were coming from. And I still don't have much empathy for them. I mean, I hope that they've turned their lives around. They messed mine up really badly for a long time.

[Eric Borsick]

When I talked to Eric, he expressed remorse for what he did to BJ Gooch. He said he'd wanted to offer a personal apology back then, but his lawyers had advised against it. What do you think you would say to her if you had the chance to talk to her?

[Ryan Reynolds]

Obviously, I'm sorry. Yeah. I'm 30, almost 38 now. This happened when I was 19. Very different person now than I was back then. In a lot of ways, I think I was young and naive and foolish. And I would just hope that she knows that it was never, certainly never a part of my plan for her to be hurt in any way from our actions and just really sorry for the pain that it's caused.

[Eric Borsick]

You made this decision when you were a young man. I mean, how do you feel about that decision now? Like, do you regret?

[Ryan Reynolds]

Is a difficult question. For sure. I definitely regret the pain that I've caused people. The librarian, my family, anyone who had to suffer from this crime. At the same time, I know that I wouldn't be the person I am today if I hadn't gone through prison, if I hadn't really gone through that experience. Definitely the most formative moment of my life was having to go through the American prison system. It really shaped who I am today, and it made me a much better person, and it showed me a side of life that I had never experienced.

[Eric Borsick]

He says, get him wrong, prison was hell. Coming out of prison and trying to rejoin society was in many ways even worse. But he says one of the cliches is true. Prison gives you a lot of time to think. Eric spent some of that time writing a memoir about the robbery called American Animals. He admits that he and his college buddies were driven by shallow notions about the glamour of the heist. But he also remembers what it was like during those brief weeks before the arrest when they had those rare books to themselves.

[Ryan Reynolds]

The ironic part is that most all of us involved really, actually appreciated art and rare manuscripts. Like, it was something that we really valued. After we stole these things, we used to stay up late at night reading them and just, like, knowing that we would never hold anything so beautiful and valuable ever again.

[Eric Borsick]

Also ironic. Eric and his co conspirators could have so easily avoided the pain they inflicted on others and themselves. They could have held those same exact manuscripts at almost any time. They could have read them in the very same rare book room they stole from. All they needed to do was make a normal Appointment with BJ Gooch thanks for listening to History this week. For moments throughout history that are also worth watching, check your local TV listings to find out what's on the History Channel today. If you want to get in touch, please shoot us an email at our email address historythisweekhistory.com or you can leave us a voicemail 212-351-0410 Special thanks to our guests BJ Gooch, retired Special Collections librarian Eric Forsyk, whose memoir about his crime is called American A True Crime Memoir, and Tom Leckie, rare book and manuscript specialist. Thanks also to Beth Musgrave, reporter at the Lexington Herald Leader. In putting together this episode, we consulted a great article in Vanity Fair about the crime. The writer of that article is John Falk. This episode was produced by Corinne Wallace with help from Hazel May. It was sound designed by Brian Flood and story edited by Jim O'Grady. Our senior producer is Ben Dickstein. History this Week is also produced by Julia Press and me, Sally Helm. Our associate producer is Emma Fredericks. Our supervising producer is McKamey Lynn and our executive producer is Jesse Katz. Don't forget to subscribe, rate and review History this week, wherever you get your podcasts and we'll see you next week.