LIVE CULTURES, DEAD CASE
After four years, a University of Buffalo art teacher has been cleared of mail fraud charges. Steven J. Kurtz was arrested after authorities responding to an unrelated medical emergency found bacteria being harvested in his house — not for terrorism (as they believed), but for an art installation. Kurtz was charged with wire and mail fraud for having obtained the bacteria by post from a colleague at the University of Pittsburgh, Dr. Robert E. Ferrell. But Western District Judge Richard J. Arcara dismissed the case as “insufficient on its face.” The Buffalo News suggests that the response by the FBI and local law enforcement smacked of hysteria and, perhaps, prosecutorial connivance.  “Kurtz and Ferrell never dreamed that anybody would claim they were violating some law by basically acquiring Level One — which is harmless — bacteria and trying to create an art project,” Cambria said after learning of the dismissal. “They never thought in their wildest dreams that someone would think that was a crime.”

BEYOND BORROWER'S ABILITY
The New York Law Journal has an article today about a hamstrung judge who was legally prevented from applying the state's prohibition against predatory lending in a case involving a bereft homeowner facing foreclosure. "[A]bsent the violation of some statute or other relevant legal principle the law does not permit judges to simply ignore payment obligations voluntarily taken on by mortgagors, even if it should have been evident to both lender and borrower that the loan was likely beyond the borrower's ability to repay," wrote Nassau County Justice Daniel R. Palmieri. The case involved Jo-Anne Dobkin, who took on two loans totaling $418,540 from Alliance Mortgage Banking Corporation, a national mortgage lender. But although Sobkin alleged that she was never offered a list of credit counselors before she signed the loan papers, and that she was allowed to finance more than what her home actually cost to cover the fees, Palmieri ruled that neither the state nor the federal Home Ownership and Equity Protection Act of 1994 allow a mortgagor to "escape their legal obligations simply because they borrowed too much."

THE UNFORTUNATE FORTUNATO
And after a Brooklyn jury acquitted mob henchman Mario Polito of arranging a 1994 hit on a Genovese crime family loanshark, his co-conspirator, Mario Fortunato, was convicted in a bench trial and sentenced to 15 years to life by Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Joel Goldberg. (Irony of ironies: Fortunato chose a bench trial to separate himself from the mountain of evidence against Polito.) The Daily News has the story. "Although I'm not supposed to criticize a jury verdict, I had to disagree with it," said Goldberg. "The evidence against Mr. Polito is overwhelming ... the evidence was not that strong against Mr. Fortunato. It reached a result that doesn't speak justice at all for anyone." Added the unfortunate Fortunato: "What has happened is unbelievable. Carmine Polito is home. I am in jail. This is not justice."