Archivist sold WWII-era bombing photos that were supposed to be free, feds say

A Maryland archivist was accused of accepting thousands of dollars from outside companies for work that was part of his federal job — and will now spend the next four months on house arrest, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Gerald Luchansky, 82, is also ordered to serve one year probation and pay a $5,000 fine after he pleaded guilty to pocketing the illegal payments, prosecutors said in a news release.

The former National Archives and Records Administration specialist admitted he was paid by two companies for work he was supposed to provide to the public free of charge. It started in 2008, authorities said, when a German company hired Luchansky and paid him to find and digitize archival aerial photos of allied World War II bombing runs.

“Luchansky would scan NARA’s archival aerial photographs and provide them to the German company on thumb drives or CDs,” according to prosecutors. “The Germany company paid Luchansky for the photographs, even though Luchansky was being paid by NARA to provide those same photographs to members of the public for free.”

The archivist also received more than $27,500 from a Maryland company that paid him to pull rolls of NARA’s aerial film and research the agency’s cartographic holdings, according to a news release.

Prosecutors said he sent the Maryland company invoices for his work and later deposited the payments in his bank account.

A defense lawyer for Luchansky pointed to his client’s “meritorious career of service to NARA” and said the ex-archivist had “expressed considerable regret” for his actions, WJLA reported.

Luchansky began working for the agency in 1979 and was honored with a lifetime achievement award upon retiring in 2017.