A Charleston man caught stealing items from the campus of the University of Charleston and selling them on Amazon pleaded guilty earlier this week, announced United States Attorney Carol Casto. Adam St. Clair, 30, entered his guilty plea to mail fraud.

Between the summer of 2014 and approximately the fall of 2015, St. Clair secretly entered locked offices and rooms in buildings on the campus of the University of Charleston without permission or authority. He then stole textbooks and other items from inside those offices. St. Clair maintained an account with Amazon to offer textbooks, electronic equipment, and other goods he had stolen from the University of Charleston campus for sale over the internet. St. Clair had a page on Amazon’s website that he named “Robin Hood Literature.” As a seller of merchandise on Amazon, St. Clair certified that he had the legal right to sell the items advertised on his site. When someone would order a textbook from the site, St. Clair mailed the order to the customer. On one occasion in August of 2015, an employee of the University of Charleston ordered and received a textbook that had been stolen from her. St. Clair received over $6,000 for selling the stolen merchandise, and, as part of his plea agreement, agreed to pay $6,271 in restitution.

St. Clair faces up to 20 years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine when he is sentenced on January 10, 2018.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, the United States Postal Inspection Service, and the University of Charleston Department of Public Safety conducted the investigation. Assistant United States Attorney R. Gregory McVey is handling the prosecution. United States District Judge Joseph R. Goodwin presided over the plea hearing.