Presidential historian indicted on federal charges

BALTIMORE – A federal grand jury has indicted a presidential historian and his assistant on charges of stealing and selling historical documents from museums in New York and Baltimore.

Initial appearances for the pair were scheduled Friday in U.S. District Court in Baltimore. The two are already facing state charges in Baltimore, where bail was set Tuesday at $500,000 for presidential historian 63-year-old Barry Landau and $750,000 for his 24-year-old assistant, Jason Savedoff.

They were arrested July 9 after a Maryland Historical Society employee said he saw Savedoff take a document from its Baltimore library.

Federal prosecutors say the two also are suspected in the theft of documents from the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum in New York and the theft of a Benjamin Franklin letter from the New York Historical Society.