The long drawn-out saga of Steve Kurtz and the Critical Art Ensemble's struggle with federal authorities has taken a turn for the worse. As you recall, Kurtz was at first investigated for bio-terrorism after emergency services came to tend to his wife Hope after her ultimately fatal heart attack. The equipment being used by Steve Kurtz, a tenured professor of art at SUNY Buffalo, provoked a massive overkill, including FBI investigations and the search of his house by agents wearing full HazMat gear.
While that terror accusation died a rightful death, authorities slapped a mail-fraud charge on Kurtz for obtaining some standard-issue bacteria for research purposes from geneticist Robert E. Ferrell. Suffering from non-Hogkins lymphoma and the after-effects of several strokes, Ferrell has now entered a guilty plea in the case, making it far more likely that Kurtz will also be convicted. Although his family have characterized this step as the result of persecution, prosecutors seem determined to go ahead. Even Ferrell, sick as he is, faces a six-month custodial sentence. Cold times for artistic and intellectual freedom in the US