Steve Kurtz, the subject of a Sundance Film Festival documentary about how he was  once labeled a bioterrorist and a suspect in his wife's death, answered questions for Second Life residents this evening about  his legal efforts to  avoid jail time.

The film, "Strange Culture," which premiered in Second Life last night, examined Kurtz's  life as an artist and professor, and also revisited the events surrounding his wife's death. Hope Kurtz died of heart failure in her sleep.

Kurtz joined filmmaker Lynn Hershman Leeson in answering questions from a live audience at the film festival in Utah, as well as from avatars, who the Utah crowd could see. The premier was shown on NEWAre sim, a  Stanford Humanities Lab project.

Kurtz is part of an arts organization called the Critical Art Ensemble.  The Critical Art Ensemble  Defense fund has been created to help raise consciousness and awareness of Kurtz's  precedent-setting case, which has  profound implications for freedom of speech and expression  and for anyone critical of government policy. The fund's Web site says the case threatens to set a dangerous legal and political precedent.

 Kurtz is an art professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo. he was  working on an art installation about  food and genetically modified organisms.  He had bought some  bacteria for the project over the Internet, and the film describes how easy it was to buy such bacteria.

At the time, the FBI were  paying close attention to Buffalo. Kurtz's art installations were on exhibit just two years after a terrorist cell was discovered in Buffalo. When the FBI  came to Kurtz's house to question him,   they found an invitation to an art show, which had Arabic  writing on it. They also found some white powder in his house and were immediately suspicious. The powder was for one of his art projects.

The charges against Kurtz were eventually reduced  to mail fraud and wire fraud, which carry a possible sentence of 20 years in prison.

Today, Kurtz  is waiting on the ruling of one minor motion on the charge of breaking a material transfer agreement.
 "I  have a conservative judge. The likelihood of me going to jail is good," Kurtz said.
A trial date has not been set.

"If acquitted, I am an officer of the state. They'd have to pay me back for all I spent on lawyers," Kurtz said.
He said the money would go to a constitutional defense fund for people who can't afford lawyers.

SUNY Buffalo, the university he teaches at, is taking a neutral role and not commenting on the legal process.
"Should I get convicted, the school is dreading that," Kurtz said.  

Most films at the Sundance Film Festival are looking for a buyers and distributors. This evening, director  Hershman Leeson announced to the audience that the  film has been accepted into the highly respected Berlin International film festival which runs Feb . 8 to 18.

Another screening of "Strange Culture" will be shown Tuesday in Second Life, as well as at Sundance Film Festival Tuesday and Wednesday.