Photo by BenBalter

College textbooks are expensive. So expensive, in fact, that four men at George Washington University were recently caught stealing the books from the university bookstore and selling them to students at a discounts. Three of those men were employees of the bookstore, while a fourth was a local hot dog stand operator who took care of selling the books. Reads a press release from the U.S. Attorney for D.C.’s office:

Hao Nguyen, 42, of Falls Church, Va., Darrell Coleman, 21, of Washington, D.C., and Kiry McCullum, 22, also of Washington, D.C., were found guilty of conspiracy and other charges on Nov. 8, 2012, following a trial in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. They are to be sentenced Jan. 18, 2013, by the Honorable Stuart G. Nash.

According to the government’s evidence, Coleman, McCullum, and another defendant, Kyle Culbreath, 22, were employed in December 2010 as seasonal employees at the bookstore, with the job of unloading boxes of textbooks and stocking them on the shelf. Security video captured them instead removing books from the shelf, placing them into boxes, and taking the boxes to the loading dock of the Marvin Center, where the bookstore is located.

At the dock, the employees either hid the boxes in the trash compactor or passed them directly to Nguyen, a local hot dog stand operator who also used his stand to buy textbooks from students at George Washington University. Nguyen then resold the stolen books online.

This pattern continued for over a month, from Dec. 13, 2010 through Jan. 19, 2011. During that time, the bookstore lost approximately $200,000 in textbooks. Simultaneously, Nguyen sold or attempted to sell the books online for over $50,000.

All four pleaded guilty to multiple counts of first-degree theft, each of which could land them in prison for 10 years. Nguyen, Coleman and McCullum are set to be sentenced in January, while Culbreath will be sentenced later this month.