In fact, some of the biggest recent robberies on campus have been inside jobs, not break-ins. And Harvard continues to put employees without background checks in contact with some of its most valuable holdings.

Including the Womack case, a substantial amount of Harvard property has been stolen or damaged by three different University workers since May 1993.

James A. Hogue, a Harvard Extension School student and casual employee of the Mineralogical Museum, was arrested on May 10, 1993, for stealing nearly $100,000 in precious gems, minerals and other property from that museum.

"This is one of the largest, if not the largest recovery dollar-wise in the history of the department." Harvard Police Lt. John F. Rooney told The Crimson at the time.

That summer, Harvard police broke another case of employee theft. A volunteer at the Museum of Comparative Zoology was discovered to have stolen rare objects, including fossilized insects, from a collection there.

Johnson has cautioned that other universities have also been unable to do sufficient background checks. Before coming to the Extension School, Hogue, now 34, managed to enroll at Princeton University in 1988 under the alias "Alexi Indris-Santana," according to the Associated Press.

Applying under the cover story that he was a self-educated farm hand, "Santana" earned a $20,000 scholarship from the school.

Hogue had previously been enrolled, under his real name, in the University of Wyoming. After two years there, he transferred to Austin (Tex.) Community College.

In 1987, Hogue stole thousands of dollars worth of bicycle parts in California. He was arrested a year later in Utah, where he served six months in a state prison and a second six months in a halfway house before he broke parole and left the state, according to a May 1993 story in the Harvard Gazette.

In the summer of 1992, while Hogue worked at the New Jersey electronics firm Roscom, he stole at least $600 in electronics equipment.

Despite his past, Hogue was able to enroll in the Extension School under his real name. In turn, his status as a student helped him get a job with the Mineralogical museum.

He gained access to the stolen property through his work as a "casual employee" of the museum, according to Carl A. Francis, associate curator of the Mineralogical Museum.

With that access, he stockpiled gold, silver, rubies, opals and more than 100 other precious and non-precious gems and minerals during a period of nine months. He also picked up a microscope valued at $10,000.

Harvard police, including Sgt. Kathleen Stanford and Det. Richard Mederos, both of whom investigated the Womack case, finally cornered Hogue in his home in May 1993. There they found the jewels, the microscope and the equipment he stole from the New Jersey electronics firm.

Hogue pled guilty that December to one count of larceny over $250. Middlesex County Superior Court Judge Robert Barron sentenced him to one year in prison, with an additional three-year suspended sentence tacked on.