AP

Michael Craver

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DILLSBURG, Pennsylvania — A judge has ruled that the American parents of an adopted Russian boy will stand trial on charges that they beat and starved him to death.

Michael and Nanette Craver were charged with criminal homicide and child endangerment after their 7-year-old son, Nathaniel, died in August 2009 from multiple injuries and in an emaciated state.

Judge Richard Thomas ruled at a preliminary hearing late last week that Pennsylvania prosecutors had presented enough evidence to put the Cravers on trial, and he set a date to begin in September.

Russia halted adoptions to the United States last month after a Tennessee woman sent her 7-year-old adopted Russian son back to Moscow alone, with a note in his pocket saying he was no longer wanted because he was violent and threatened to burn down the family home.

Sergei Logachev, senior consul at the Russian consulate general in New York who attended Thursday's hearing, said it was important that controls be put in place to secure the well-being of adopted Russian children.

In Moscow, Russian and U.S. officials held a first round of talks Thursday to craft a new deal that would govern adoptions and get the adoption process back on track.

U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley described the meeting as "fruitful" but added that it would take time to reach a deal.

"We have committed to pursue an agreement that strengthens the processes of adoption of Russian children and American families," Crowley said at a news briefing.

He said further discussions were set for May 12, and that it appeared Russia's go-slow policy on new U.S. adoptions would remain in place for the time being.

Nathaniel Craver, who was born Ivan Skorobogatov and adopted in 2003 at age 18 months, had about 80 injuries to his head and other parts of his body and had negligible body fat when he died in a Pennsylvania hospital, an autopsy found.

Dr. Wayne Ross, a forensic pathologist who conducted the autopsy, told the hearing that Nathaniel's body had just one millimeter of subcutaneous fat, no muscle tone and a prominent rib cage.

"He looked like he was starved to me," Ross said, as Michael Craver, 45, and Nanette Craver, 55, both wearing orange prison jumpsuits, listened from the defense bench. Nathaniel's twin sister, also adopted from a Russian orphanage, has been taken into foster care.

The boy's injuries included a severely swollen face, "cauliflower" ears that are often seen in wrestlers and shoulder and hip joints that suggested his limbs had been pulled out from their sockets, Ross said.

Many of the injuries appeared to be the result of "severe blunt force trauma," Ross said.

Nathaniel died from complications of a traumatic brain injury and "severe failure to thrive" as a result of starvation, the coroner's report said.

Michael Craver's aunt, Sandra Atkins, a witness for the prosecution, testified that she visited the family about two weeks before Nathaniel died and found that he had a swollen cheek, a scar on the back of his head and eyes that were "almost closed."

Atkins said Michael Craver told her that Nathaniel's injuries were self-inflicted.

"Michael just said he fell," she told the court. "He said he just throws himself down and falls and rubs his eyes."

If found guilty of first-degree murder, the Cravers face life in prison without parole or the death penalty, prosecutors said. Prosecutors are still deciding whether to seek the death penalty.