TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) – A man accused of stealing a rare comic book collection from Florida State University’s Strozier Library entered a no-contest plea to grand theft on Thursday, according to court documents.
Todd Peak was sentenced to 18 months in prison and 10 years on probation, court papers say. He was also ordered to pay $50,000 to FSU and $13,850 to a man named Mike Kissane, who’s identified in court documents as paying that amount to Peak for the stolen comics.
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Peak was arrested in 2022 after investigators found he stole comic books from the library’s Ervin Collection. Peak then sold the comic books to various collectors and stores, both in-person and online, for tens of thousands of dollars total, according to arrest documents.
Court documents show that of the nearly 5,000 comic books reported stolen, A total of 4,996 items went missing from the Robert M. Ervin Jr. Collection between March 17, 2020, and Feb. 10, 2021.
FSU says its police department is investigating after nearly 5,000 rare items were taken from a special collection at Strozier Library.
Library staff first discovered the theft in February 2021. The Ervin Collection contains more than 4,000 comic books from various publishers spanning from the 1950s through the 1970s. FSU notified the public about the theft in September 2021. That’s when a comic book dealer came forward and raised suspicions about Peak, according to arrest records.
Peak was one of only four people at Strozier with a key to the library’s Special Collections area, which is in the sub-basement of the building behind a padlocked fence.
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