An Illinois man admitted in federal court Tuesday to destroying certain World War II-era military personnel records that he was supposed to be scanning while employed at the National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) in St. Louis earlier this year. Peter Panouzis, 31, of East Alton, Illinois, was contracted by Ancestry.com to take part in the website's joint effort with the National Archives and Records Administration to digitize old draft cards.
Those cards contained a young man's basic info — name, age, date and place of birth, and address. However, if at any time the young registrant had moved to a different address, the NPRC would affix a small attachment noting the change.
According to Panouzis' attorney, Matthew Radefield, scanning those small attachments took three to five times longer than a simple draft card.…