Judge orders online sale of Unabomber goods

[Dr. Jack]

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - "Unabomber" Theodore Kaczynski's journal, as well as axes, typewriters and books seized from his Montana cabin will be sold in an Internet auction to help pay restitution to his victims, a U.S. federal judge has ordered.

Judge Garland Burrell of the U.S. District Court in Sacramento issued the order on Thursday, directing the U.S. Marshals Service to arrange to sell the mail bomber's property through an online auction.

Proceeds from the sale would go towards a $15 million restitution order to pay victims and their families. The auctioneer would get no more than 10 percent of the proceeds to cover its costs.

The date and company that will handle the auction will be determined later.

Among the items on auction will be thousands of pages of writings by Kaczynski, a former math professor who withdrew from society and developed radical anti-technology beliefs. The San Francisco Chronicle said Kaczynski's journal was some 22,000 pages long and detailed his anti-social feelings.

Other personal items, which were seized in a 1996 raid of Kaczynski's cabin, on the block will be hand tools, shovels, saw blades, knives, bows and arrows, axes, clothing, typewriters and a briefcase containing his degrees from the University of Michigan.

Burrell also ordered some 200 books -- with titles ranging from "Stalking the Wild Asparagus" to "Axiomatization of the Theory of Relativity" -- to be sold.

The judge ruled that bomb-making materials found in Kaczynski's cabin not be part of the auction. Burrell also said weapons and bomb-making material would not be returned to Kaczynski as he had requested.

Kaczynski, 64, killed three people and injured more than 20 with homemade bombs sent through the mail from 1978 to 1995. He also threatened to blow up airplanes.

Federal agents seized Kaczynski's property in a raid of his cabin in 1996. His arrest followed a tip by his brother, who recognised Kaczynski's beliefs in his manifesto attacking modern life published by The New York Times and The Washington Post in 1995.

Kaczynski struck a plea bargain in 1998 that sent him to prison for life at the super-maximum-security federal prison in Florence, Colorado, known as the "Alcatraz of the Rockies."