"NYC FIREFIGHTER COMMITS DISGRACEFUL CRIMES"

"BADGE OF DISHONOR"

February 26, 2004

A crime against memories
 

World Trade Center souvenir suspect finds some sympathy
 

   By Jessica Gardner
   Times Herald-Record
   jgardner@th-record.com
   
   New York – Samuel Brandon spent 14 years as a New York City firefighter. At 8:30 a.m. he sits alone on a wooden bench in a marble-lined hallway on the fourth floor of the Manhattan criminal courthouse, waiting for his trial to begin for the day.
 

   His rounded shoulders are visibly stiff. He clasps and unclasps his hands. Then he paces the green speckled floor, running his trembling hands up and down his blue- and white-striped tie, which is already straight.
 

   The 61-year-old Pine Bush resident isn't so far from the sacred ground where the Twin Towers once stood. It's the spot of his greatest generosity, and now his greatest shame.
 

   "I feel so bad," he says. He reaches out his hand as though grasping for understanding. "I am a very respectful person."
   
   IT'S A DIFFERENT WORLD just a few blocks down Centre Street. Cumbersome cameras are lined up like soldiers across the street from the federal court building. TV crews make adjustments to get just the right shot of the now-infamous Martha Stewart. No one wants to miss the shot.
 

   She's accused of securities fraud and conspiracy in a case that has drawn national attention. Hers, if guilty, is a crime some say has no victim. Brandon's offense is a crime against memories.
   
   A FEW BLOCKS OVER, there isn't a camera crew in sight. No one's waiting for Brandon, a retired fireman with an ample girth. He's not fighting the noose of federal charges, but rather the nuisance of 11 counts of petty larceny. The crime is a misdemeanor carrying up to a year in jail. Usually, the guilty just pay a fine.
 

   What he's accused of taking isn't much, mostly items you could stumble across while walking on the street.
 

   A few identification cards, a brass key with "do not duplicate" engraved on it, a quarter, a smashed, dirt-smeared Motorola radio, a photograph and two pieces of glass. They're all random mementos of the months he served as a volunteer at the World Trade Center site.
 

   The ID cards are charred and melted, two forever fused by intense heat. Two others carry names of the dead: Michael Costello, 27, of Hoboken, N.J., who worked for Cantor-Fitzgerald; Robert Lynch, a 44-year-old from Cranford, N.J., who made a living with the Port Authority.
 

   They were souvenirs to Brandon; lifelines and memories to the families of the victims.
 

   Prosecutors call Brandon a thief. A senior member of the Fire Department of New York says it was bad judgment.
 

   "The ID cards are problematic, but the rest? There was tons of it down there," the officer says outside the courtroom. He didn't want to be identified.
 

   FDNY doesn't have an official position regarding the case. The high-ranking fire officer is a 40-year veteran of the department, and he came to the courthouse on his own to check out rumors that Brandon removed human remains from the site. Police found none during their 2002 search of Brandon's home.
 

   "I don't know the man, but it seems that he came down there on his own time to help out," he says. "It's a curious case."
 

   He pauses, shaking his head and raising his bushy gray eyebrows quizzically. "Maybe there's something I don't know."
   
   BRANDON'S GREATEST OFFENSE, some victims' families say, wasn't pocketing rubble. His most damning crime – one for which he wasn't charged – was captured in a photograph he had proudly displayed in a large gilded frame in his living room. It features Brandon in coveralls, a sweatshirt, gloves and a fireman's helmet at Ground Zero. He's holding a human hip bone. Brandon's face is somber.
 

   The 6-person jury will hear about the photo, but they'll never see it.
 

   "It makes me crazy to think of that man posing with bones," Robin Freund says from her Westtown home. Freund lost her husband, Peter, an FDNY lieutenant, in the attacks. Peter's remains were found in the rubble, "but some got nothing back," she says.
   
   AN OLD MAN with an easy smile walks near the World Trade Center site. He loves the city's firefighters. He's not one himself, but swears if he had his life to live again, that's what he'd do.
 

   He's heard of Brandon's case, but doesn't understand why he was arrested. The man cringes when told of the ID cards. He immediately forgives Brandon's lapse in judgment.
 

   "These guys do so much," he says pointing to a firetruck parked nearby. "It's like having children: they can do no wrong."
 

   The old man has an apartment that looks out at where the towers once stood. Now there's nothing, just a blue sky.
 

   "It's an absence, you know; we lost so many," referring to the fire department as his own.
 

   He painted a picture for the firefighters to help them honor the fallen. It's on display at a nearby firehouse.
 

   As he talks about sacrifice, honor and forgiveness, he unconsciously moves his thumb back and forth over a brass-colored object.
 

   When he opens his wrinkled hand, a scarred and bent key rests in his palm. Printed on it are the words: World Trade Center. Do not duplicate.

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