- On April 4th, 2012 Joe Gutheinz and his graduate student Sandra Shelton were on hand at the West Virginia State Museum in Charleston West Virginia for the unveiling of a plaque in their honor. Sandra Shelton was honored for tracking down the West Virginia Apollo 17 Goodwill Moon Rock and Joe Gutheinz was honored for his Moon Rock Project which facilitated student investigations of this kind. The plaque was placed next to the West Virginia Apollo 17 Goodwill Moon Rock in the State Museum.
- Joe Gutheinz is perhaps best known for an undercover law enforcement sting operation called Operation Lunar Eclipse where he and his team of Agents from NASA's Office of Inspector General, the United States Postal Inspection Service and U.S. Customs recovered the Honduras Goodwill Moon Rock, which had an asking price of 5 million dollars. Gutheinz, as a Senior Special Agent with NASA Office of Inspector General led and went undercover in this sting operation and created a fictitious company called John's Estates Sales to add legitimacy to his cover story. He placed an advertisement in USA Today on September 18, 1998 titled Moon Rocks Wanted, which was designed to attract con-artists selling bogus Apollo moon rocks. What his team did not expect was that they would recover the real thing, marking the first such recovery in history. Later, as a college instructor at two colleges he had an assignment called the Moon Rock Project, where up to a 1,000 students over a period of ten years hunted down Apollo era moon rocks all over the world.
- Joe Gutheinz led a 9 agency Federal law enforcement task force investigation for all four years he went to law school. His task force investigation into Omniplan Corporation, a NASA prime and subcontractor, led to the largest count indictment and conviction in NASA history and the closure of 7 companies, 5 after being convicted of felonies. He earned several awards for this investigation, to include a commendation from the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Texas.
- In 1997, Joe Gutheinz was the lead criminal investigator (Senior Special Agent) for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Office of Inspector General into the Mir Space Station fire and collision and the theft of missing Pre-launch Assessment and Review (PAR) tapes, which was part of his investigation into the dangers of the Mir. He also investigated the Russian Space Program. For his efforts he received the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Superior Accomplishment Award.
- Joe Gutheinz investigated, interviewed, filed a complaint on and then testified against an infamous astronaut impersonator who talked his was into NASA Mission Control during a mission on a strength of a resume that said he was an astronaut, medal of honor winner, top gun trophy recipient and CIA Regent with a secret, which he told, he claimed he was A CIA assassin known as Black Death by the Russians, with 5 confirmed kills in Central America. He also received two VIP tours of Navy bases, obtained schematics to the space shuttle propulsion system; was permitted to fly a Navy simulator and at the time of his arrest was seeking to fly Navy jets at Pensacola Naval Air Station. In court he claimed his attorney was William Jefferson Clinton.
- As a Senior Special Agent with NASA's Office of Inspector General Joe Gutheinz led four overlapping task force investigations, at the same time, on five fortune 500 companies holding NASA contracts and one major tourist attraction. The investigations led to millions of dollars of recoveries and one civil suit against three of those companies, a law suit that was settled in the Governments favor. Joe received the President's Council on Integrity and Efficiency Career Achievement Award, which in part, recognized his achievement in those cases.
- Joe Gutheinz earned his first 2 college degrees while earning his high school diploma, all while a teenager. He had attended 3 colleges before his 18th birthday.
- Joe Gutheinz graduated first in his class from the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center's Criminal Investigator's course, considered the number 1 law enforcement academy in the world. For that accomplishment he was designated the class Honor Graduate. He subsequently graduated from the Office of Inspector General course at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center with a 99 average and was designated the Distinguished Graduate for the course. Both courses are located in Glynco Georgia, in what was once a military base.
- Joe Gutheinz while an Army Intelligence Captain applied for and was accepted for U.S. Army flight school. The son of two parents who had both been Marines he went to flight school for one reason, to break his fear of heights that he had since age 7, when he was injured in a fall. He soloed his helicopter the day after giving the eulogy for a friend he watch die two days prior in a helicopter crash. He successfully became an Army aviator.
- In 2014, 2015 and 2016 Joe Gutheinz was recognized by Houstonia Magazine as one of the Top Lawyers in Houston and was recognized by The National Trial Lawyers on their Top 100 Lawyers list. In 2016 Joe Gutheinz's law partners Major Michael Gutheinz and Major James Gutheinz were also recognized as Top Lawyers my Houstonia Magazine.
- In June 2015 Troy Hale's documentary Missing Moon Rocks, featuring Joe Gutheinz, won an Emmy for Best Historical Documentary.
- Joe Gutheinz was on the cover of the October/November 2004 Edition of UFO Magazine, Volume 19, No 5. He wrote a science or science fiction story appearing within the magazine titled Building 265, and challenged the readers to discern if his alien abduction story was true, a dream or a lie. Joe used a stream of consciousness approach in writing this story, and his original version was written from start to finish without corrections or interruption. The cover picture was a NASA picture of him giving a briefing on a case within building 265.
- In 2016 and 2017 Joe Gutheinz assisted Nancy Lee Carlson and her primary attorney Christopher McHugh recover Carlson's Apollo 11 Lunar bag containing Lunar dust in Carlson v. United States of America et al, Case No. 4:16-mc-02983. Nancy Carlson purchased this bag for $995.00 in a U.S. Marshall's auction and the value of that bag could be worth millions. Joe Gutheinz was both a consultant and the local counsel who was present for the handover of the bag on February 27, 2017.
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