COLLEGE PARK, Md. – A Virginia National Guard sergeant accused of stealing World War II-era dog tags from the National Archives and Records Administration in Maryland has pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor theft charge.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney’s office for Maryland said Robert Rumsby of Fredericksburg, Virginia, entered the guilty plea on Friday and is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 22 by a federal magistrate in Greenbelt, Maryland.

A criminal complaint said Rumsby told investigators he took dog tags that belonged to four U.S. airmen killed in plane crashes in 1944.

Rumsby’s wife is the great niece of one of the deceased airmen. Rumsby said he gave that airman’s dog tags to his wife’s grandmother as a Christmas gift and gave another airman’s dog tags to a relative of that serviceman.

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