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Charges against Art Professor Dismissed
By Gwendolyn Bradley
A federal judge in April dismissed as “insufficient on its face” a criminal indictment brought against Steven Kurtz, an art professor at the State University of New York College at Buffalo. The indictment, alleging mail and wire fraud, stemmed from an incident in which Robert Ferrell, a genetics researcher with the University of Pittsburgh, mailed Kurtz biological materials for use in artwork about mid-twentieth-century germ-warfare experiments conducted by the U.S. government. Ferrell pled guilty last October to a misdemeanor charge of “mailing an injurious article” to Kurtz.
Kurtz came to the attention of authorities when emergency workers responding in 2004 to the sudden death of his wife noticed unusual bacteria cultures in the house. They reported the cultures to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which sent a terrorism task force to search the premises. This ultimately led to the indictment, though the bacteria are generally considered harmless. The AAUP, along with many artists and free-speech groups, decried the government’s disproportionate response to a minor infraction. (See “Dangerous Art”in the January–February 2005 issue of Academe and “Artists Investigated by Federal Government” in the July–August 2005 issue.)
The Justice Department can appeal the ruling.
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