A man was accused of peddling fake moon dust through a classified ad, according to a report in the Arizona Republic, the newspaper in which the ad appeared.
Richard Keith Mountain of New Milford, Connecticut, faces federal charges for mail fraud and wire fraud. He pleaded not guilty on July 13. Mountain's classified ad, placed in September 1997, offered the "only privately owned Apollo 11 lunar soil in the world." The ad resulted in $80,000 in sales. According to prosecutors, customers received something roughly the size of a grain of sand, in a quarter-sized plastic case.