Word: kurtzes
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...confirms much of Kurtz's account, but stresses that the situation was far from clear-cut when agents arrived on the scene. "He had a working microbiology lab in his home. He did not have an art exhibit in his home. We also had a dead body," says Maureen Dempsey, spokesperson for the Buffalo field office of the FBI. "We didn't know what was in there. That's why we had to cordon off the house." The bacteria that Kurtz had in his house had been used in the past to simulate dangerous bacteria for research purposes - which...
...Kurtz and a colleague were eventually charged with mail and wire fraud connected to the way they had purchased bacteria for one of Kurtz's projects. The indictment made no mention of terrorism. This spring, after the case made headlines, and artists and activists raised $300,000 for his defense, a U.S. District Court judge threw out the indictment, calling it "insufficient". The U.S. Attorney's office in Buffalo announced in June that it would not appeal...
...lessons of the ordeal, says Kurtz, is that "if you have hundreds of thousands of dollars, good lawyers, four years and total innocence, you might get some justice from the system...
...unusually constructive response to a federal investigation, Kurtz and a group of artists have created "Seized," a small but mesmerizing exhibit made out of the refuse, scraps and assorted detritus that FBI agents left inside and outside of his house. "I started thinking," says Kurtz, remembering the day he returned to his house after the raid, "they went through my trash, so maybe I'll go through theirs...
...spokesperson Dempsey points out that the pizza boxes and most of the rest of the trash were left in garbage bags outside of Kurtz's house. And during the search, all food was consumed outside of the house. "We had to order food," she says. "When you have a federal search warrant, you can't just take a lunch hour. The judges wouldn't appreciate it." And the cat? "We gave the cat food and water the whole time we were there...