“I took out hundreds of documents from there, if not more,” Rooney said in a mid-January interview, adding, “If you were to stand in front of the pyramids of Egypt, you might pick up a chip, too.”
French authorities launched an investigation of Rooney and his friend, Marshall Lawrence Pierce, in 1996 after Pierce put the Fontainebleau treaty and some letters from Louis XVIII up for sale at Sotheby’s auction house in New York. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York sentenced the pair to probation and home confinement in 2002 for conspiring to sell stolen goods. They were also to pay reparations of $1,000 and $10,000 respectively, according to the November 28, 2005, Le Monde.
Rooney, who is 74 and currently lives in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, claims he does not have any other documents that the French archives say are still missing. The trial will be heard sometime this year, and the pair could be sentenced up to three years in prison.
The French court seeks to bring charges of receiving stolen goods against Rooney and Pierce, although authorities admit they have no way to force them to attend the trial. Drew Wade, a spokesman for the Department of Justice, said he was not sure whether the United States would extradite the men if they were sentenced in Paris.
Posted January 20, 2006.