Professor Sentenced in Kurtz Bio-Art Case

BUFFALO, N.Y.—Robert Ferrell, the University of Pittsburgh geneticist who provided artist Steven Kurtz with bacteria to use in his work, has been sentenced to a year of unsupervised release and fined $500, the Associated Press reports. Ferrell pleaded guilty in October to a misdemeanor count of "mailing an injurious article." Kurtz, a member of the faculty at the University of Buffalo, still faces trail on federal mail and wire-fraud charges. Ferrell sent away for the relatively harmless bacteria for Kurtz because he could not have obtained it on his own. The case came to light when Kurtz called 911 after finding his wife dead in bed in 2005, and police suspicious of laboratory equipment in the home launched an antiterrorism investigation. Kurtz was not found to be engaging in any terrorist acts.