Steve Kurtz Interview
Buffalo artist and UB professor Steve Kurtz appeared on Democracy Now this morning in his first broadcast interview since being accused of involvement of bioterrorism back in 2004.
For more information on Kurtz’s saga with the FBI, you can read our interview with Kurtz from last year. Kurtz was only recently finally cleared of charges back in April.
The full video of the entire Democracy Now episode is after the jump (click “more…”) for those interested in watching, or you can find the transcript here. Various other streaming formats and audio-only versions are also available at the Democracy Now website. (Note: the interview with Kurtz begins at approximately 35 minutes, 30 seconds into the program, and runs about 25 minutes through to the end of the program.)
April 21, 2008
Kurtz is cleared!
Artist and UB professor Steve Kurtz was cleared of charges for mail and wire fraud today in federal court. U.S. District Judge Richard Arcara ruled that criminal charges brought against him by federal prosecutors were “insufficient on[their] face.”
As readers will recall, Kurtz’s College Street home was raided by FBI agents wearing spacey-looking white biohazard suits only hours after his wife, Hope, died of a heart attack in May of 2004. Buffalo police who responded to Kurtz’s 911 call alerted the FBI that they’d found bacteria cultures and other strange items in the house.
Kurtz had obtained the cultures and other biological materials for use in his artwork that criticized the government’s food policies.
Artvoice has covered Kurtz’s case at several critical junctures. The last time was last year’s interview with Kurtz by AV editor Geoff Kelly on the release of a film about his case, “Strange Culture.”
