PARIS (AP):
A PARIS criminal court agreed yesterday to hear a case involving two Americans in connection with the theft of an original copy of the 1814 treaty in which Napoleon renounced any claim to rule France, judicial officials said.
John William Rooney and Marshall Lawrence Pierce were charged in connection with the 1988 theft of the Treaty of Fontainebleau, signed by Napoleon, from France's National Archives.
No date was set for the trial of Rooney, a 74-year-old retired college professor, and Pierce, 44, in a criminal court to face charges of receiving stolen goods, the officials said.
U.S. authorities have not permitted French judicial investigators to question the men, who were convicted and fined in the United States on misdemeanor charges of customs violations in 2003 in the case.
They could face up to three years in prison if convicted by the Paris court.
