Nov. 3--A former College of William and Mary employee will spend two months behind bars for stealing nine computers from the university and trying to sell them on the Internet.

Jason Scott Culiner, 38, of Midlothian, was arrested following an investigation by campus police into the theft of nine laptops, with an estimated value of $1,300 each, according to university spokeswoman Suzanne Seurattan.

Culiner was sentenced Monday morning in Williamsburg-James City County Circuit Court to 10 years in prison, with all but two months suspended, on a felony charge of grand larceny, according to court records. When released, he will spend the next 13 years on supervised probation.

Culiner pleaded guilty to the charge in Circuit Court in September.

During a routine inventory of the IT department's computers in February, the count came up nine laptops short, Seurattan said.

At the time, Culiner was employed with the university's IT department, but was no longer employed at the time of his arrest. Seurattan would not specify whether Culiner was fired as a result of the incident, citing personnel privacy policies.

William and Mary police investigators looking into the missing laptops found similar computers for sale on Craigslist, a free classifieds Web site.

The laptops for sale were equipped with a program unique to those used at the university, said Cathy Black, a Williamsburg-James City prosecutor handling the case, during Culiner's September court appearance.

The e-mail address attached to the ad was traced to Culiner, Black said.

Black said Culiner was trying to sell the computers to support a cocaine habit. Seurattan said the university has recovered two of the nine missing laptops.

One was recovered in good condition; the other is likely unusable, she said.

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