In 2002 Thad Roberts, budding physicist and wunderkind, conspired to steal a 600-pound safe full of the rarest objects on the planet earth and he somehow outwitted NASA security, cipher-locks and an impregnable fortress to do it.
That was the easy part.
The hard part, said author Ben Mezrich, was figuring out what to do with a tackle box full of lunar rocks.
“What do you do with the most valuable object in the world?" Mezrich asked. "You can't sell it!"
Mezrich, author of "The Accidental Billionaires" about Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg (which became the Oscar-winning movie "The Social Network"), is familiar with brilliant and flawed figures. But the fellow who took the moon rocks also took the cake.
"He is the most complex person I've ever written about," said Mezrich recently during a conversation from his home in Boston. "He’s a genius but he’s impulsive and he does something so crazy and so foolish that he derails his entire life."
On Monday, Mezrich will speak at the Marcus Jewish Community Center of Atlanta about "Sex on the Moon: The Amazing Story Behind the Most Audacious Heist in History," the non-fiction narrative that follows Roberts, breathlessly, through his ill-fated caper.
During a phone call from his Back Bay home, Mezrich, 42, talked about meeting Roberts and writing about the love-inspired crime.
Q: How could such a smart guy pick a stoner for an accomplice and walk right into an FBI sting?
A: It speaks to the fact that he's not this master criminal which I think he can be portrayed as in the press. He really was this kid who pulled off a really expensive college prank.
Q: How did you meet Roberts?
A: I always wanted to write about NASA. I'd been thinking about it for some time and out of the blue, I get a call from a buddy that this kid Thad Roberts had gotten out of jail and he wanted to talk to me, to tell me his story.
Q: You write that it was a crime committed for love.
A: Look at what he asked for [$100,000]. It wasn't a ton of money. He's not really trying to get super-rich. It was not about that. It was about impressing this girl and impressing everyone around him.
Q: In the hotel room they put one of the moon rocks under the mattress pad and had sex on top of it. Wasn't that detrimental to the stone?
A: I don't think he was too concerned about that. Remember, he ate some of it too.
Q: You use recreated dialogue and you narrate what's going on in the characters' minds, but even they can't remember years later what they were thinking moment to moment. You will concede that this is a version of reality but not necessarily reality, right?
A: No. This is what happened. I don't see any difference. I draw it out. It's the style that I write in. I'm very clear about what I'm going to do, how I write it. It's not a documentary, but it's as close as I can get. I had resources to a degree which no one's ever had before. [Roberts] gave me hundreds and hundreds of hours and I had all the other players.
Q: What's next for you?
A: I don't know. ... I'm just excited to be finally talking about something other than Facebook.
Ben Mezrich, in conversation with Jimmy Baron, of WZGC 92.9 Dave FM, as part of "A Page from the Book Festival," at the Marcus Jewish Community Center of Atlanta, 7:30 p.m. Monday, July 18, $16, $11 members, 5342 Tilly Mill Road, Dunwoody. Information, 678-812-4002; www.atlantajcc.org
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