Five Hundred Bucks Worth of Bacterial Witch-Hunt

(((This ridiculous show-trial is gonna outlast the War on Terror.
Even the Scopes Monkey Trial was less stupid than this.)))

Link: Professor Sentenced for Providing Bacteria for Art - New York Times.

ARTS, BRIEFLY

Professor Sentenced for Providing Bacteria for Art

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

Published: February 12, 2008

Dr. Robert Ferrell, a University of Pittsburgh geneticist, has been sentenced to a year of unsupervised release and fined $500 for providing Steven Kurtz, an artist friend, with bacteria to use in his biotech-theme artwork, The Associated Press reported. Dr. Ferrell pleaded guilty in October to a misdemeanor count of “mailing an injurious article.” Mr. Kurtz, a member of the faculty of the University at Buffalo, faces trial on federal mail and wire-fraud charges. Prosecutors say Dr. Ferrell sent away for the relatively harmless bacteria for Mr. Kurtz because he could not have obtained it on his own. His defenders maintain that Mr. Kurtz was merely trying to provoke discussion through art and that government prosecution stifles debate. The case began as an antiterrorism investigation after the police saw laboratory equipment in Mr. Kurtz’s home after the death of his wife, but suspicions of terrorism were swiftly ruled out.