A former library employee and undergraduate student who allegedly stole more than $1 million worth of material from the UCLA archives will be sentenced today after pleading no contest for charges of grand theft and receiving stolen property.
Robert Bermeo, son of the prominent Academic Advancement Program Director Adolfo Bermeo, will also appear in a pretrial hearing on separate charges of grand theft, receiving stolen property and committing a felony while on bail.
According to police reports, between October 1990 and June 1992 Bermeo, who worked in the library at that time, stole rare items such as manuscripts, first-edition works, photographs and other archived material from both the library's special and general collections.
"The vast majority of the art (stolen) were gifts, and they were very valuable, very treasured materials," said Gloria Werner, a university librarian.
Bermeo was originally scheduled for a preliminary hearing last Friday. However, due to a request made by Bermeo's attorney, the pre-trial motion was rescheduled for today.
Bermeo declined to comment on the charges.
This is not the first time Bermeo has been arrested and charged with grand theft. On Sept. 12, 1986, Bermeo, a UCLA undergraduate student government advocate at that time, was arrested and charged with theft after he allegedly stole about $1,200 in merchandise from a Westwood clothing store.
Bermeo pled no contest to the charge and was sentenced to 20 hours of community service through the L.A. County Volunteer Center. Bermeo subsequently resigned from his position as student advocate.
Library officials contend that they were not aware of Bermeo's prior arrest record. At the time of Bermeo's hiring, background checks were not normal procedures, they said. Hired in October 1990 as a special collections processor and student assistant, Bermeo was also responsible for taking inventory of a section of the special arts collection.
The bulk of the material Bermeo stole were film, theater and TV archival material. Library officials said that Bermeo was fascinated by those types of materials.