Only one graduate of South Texas College of Law Houston can claim record-setting courtroom victories, historic firsts, impactful appointments, corporate and civic leadership roles, high profile clients, innovative approaches… and the moniker “The Moon Rock Hunter”: Joe Gutheinz, class of 1996.
Gutheinz’s nickname was bestowed by a reporter from the New York Times, and he recently talked about recovering moon rocks at the International Association of Law Librarians’ conference hosted at South Texas Law by The Fred Parks Law Library.
A singular figure in legal and space history, Joseph “Joe” Gutheinz ’96 was born into a military family at Camp LeJeune in North Carolina. Home was wherever his father was stationed, and by the time he was entering high school, home was California.
He started college at age 14, eventually studying criminal justice, sociology, and psychology. He earned six degrees including a Master of Science in Systems Management from the University of Southern California and his Juris Doctor from South Texas Law.
Gutheinz’s resume reads like the backstory of a well-educated lead character in a Hollywood movie. He began his career in the U.S. Army, becoming an intelligence officer and helicopter pilot. Gutheinz became a federal law enforcement officer for the Federal Aviation Administration and U.S. Department of Transportation and a senior special agent for the Office of the Inspector General at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), sometimes working undercover.
He holds teaching credentials in six subjects and is an attorney licensed to appear before multiple courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court. He received the NASA Exceptional Service Medal (rarely given, then usually to astronauts after a successful space mission) and the U.S. Army Meritorious Service Medal. He received commendations from six federal agencies, and he holds a commission as an Honorary Admiral in the Texas Navy. He has authored or co-authored numerous articles and is a highly sought-after public speaker.
Gutheinz knew he wanted to study law at some point in his career to follow in the footsteps of his father, Lt. Col. Joseph Gutheinz, Sr., a highly decorated U.S. Marine who proudly served in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam before becoming an attorney.
“I had been transferred to the Johnson Space Center during my time with NASA and saw South Texas Law’s part-time program as a perfect way to achieve my goal,” Gutheinz said. “I had a wife and six sons, so I needed to work while I went to law school.”
Part of many important and high-profile projects, Gutheinz was chosen to investigate the Space Station Mir fire and collision.
He also conducted the largest fraud investigation in the history of NASA as the task force leader and case agent, in which the owner of Omniplan, a NASA contractor, and its subsidiaries, could have been charged with more than 10,000 counts of wrongdoing. Spanning nine agencies over four years, the investigation resulted in a 270-count indictment and 180 felony convictions, the closure of seven companies — five after felony convictions, and millions of dollars in court-ordered settlements. Gutheinz later led successful spinoff investigations of Lockheed Martin, Boeing, United Space Alliance, and Rockwell Space Operations Co., resulting in the recovery of millions of dollars.
“That was definitely my career case,” said Gutheinz. “It provided the most powerful moment of my career.” While executing a search warrant in Omniplan’s Clear Lake office, he discovered four separate stacks of documents on the desk of the president and CEO. “This was the clearest smoking gun evidence ever,” Gutheinz said. “It demonstrated exactly how they were altering records and running their fraudulent operation. I knew we had them.”
Gutheinz is most well-known for his role in another investigation, Operation Lunar Eclipse. Beginning in 1998, he led and went undercover during a sting operation to secure the Honduras Goodwill Moon Rock, which had been offered for sale illegally. (Nations around the world, including Honduras, and most U.S. state governments, had been gifted with moon rocks by the U.S. government. Many of them had gone missing or were misplaced.)
Members of Gutheinz’s team were drawn not only from NASA’s Office of the Inspector General, but also the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and U.S. Customs. Texas billionaire and one-time presidential candidate Ross Perot assisted the investigation by putting up the $5 million-dollar asking price for the Honduras Goodwill Moon Rock.
“I decided to call Mr. Perot’s office and see if he might be interested in helping out,” Gutheinz said. “To my amazement, he called me back and agreed to assist.”
Another career highlight that made the news came as the result of his investigation of Jerry Alan Whittridge, who was impersonating an astronaut. “He was able to convince security to let him in to mission control, where he sat at a console and talked with the astronauts on the space station,” Gutheinz said. “He also claimed he was a CIA agent who was an assassin, and a three-star admiral with a Congressional Medal of Honor. I arrested him and later testified against him in court.”
Since retiring from NASA, which Gutheinz describes as “the hardest thing I have ever done,” he has led the Moon Rock Project, teaching undergraduate and graduate students how to hunt down moon rocks all over the world. “Thanks to my students, many have been recovered and put on display.”
Gutheinz feels strongly about the missing moon rocks — not simply because they are stolen property, but also because he knows they can fuel dreams. “I know an astronaut who initially wanted to be a pilot when he was a kid,” he said. “But then he saw a moon rock on display at a museum. He was awed and it completely changed the course of his life. Moon rocks have that kind of power.”
The Moon Rock Hunter and the lunar treasures he seeks to locate and protect have been the subject of numerous articles and interviews, domestically and internationally. There is also a novel inspired by his project and an Emmy award-winning documentary. An independent movie titled “Operation Lunar Eclipse” just wrapped production.
Now in private practice with two of his six sons, Michael and James, Gutheinz is having a good time. “It’s nice being the boss,” he said. “And I like working with my sons, who are both South Texas Law graduates — Michael in 2006 and James in 2010.” Both are lieutenant colonels in the U.S. Army Reserve and like their father, were commissioned honorary admirals in the Texas Navy by Gov. Greg Abbott.
He enjoys criminal defense work — especially when it involves clients who are wrongfully accused or have a set of mitigating circumstances. Gutheinz Law Firm is dedicated to the memory of his father and handles a variety of cases, including criminal, family, civil, military, aviation, and space law.
“I definitely think the next legal frontier is space law,” Gutheinz said. “There is so much to be figured out as we continue to privitize space and head back to the lunar surface. Who owns the moon, and its native elements?”
Recently, Gutheinz has become a member of the South Texas Law Alumni Association Board of Directors. “I treasure having an opportunity to serve the law school that has allowed me to pursue my dream.”
He is lightning quick to credit his wife of 50 years, Lori Bentley Gutheinz, with making his varied and vast accomplishments possible. “She is the best partner anyone has ever had,” he said. “I owe her so much.”
After having such a celebrated and storied career spanning the military, law enforcement and law, Gutheinz still has unmet goals. The top of his list? Going to the moon as a civilian, of course.
