Judge Given Valentine Gift: Poison Candy

A former university professor was accused today of sending poisoned Valentine’s Day chocolates to the home of the federal judge who sent him to prison for running a campus drug lab.

The judge’s wife had to be hospitalized after she ate four of the candies, according to a criminal complaint filed at federal court in White Plains.

The defendant, John Buettner-Janusch, is a noted anthropologist who was convicted in 1980 of illegally making LSD and methaqualone in a New York University lab.

Buettner-Janusch, 61, had been chairman of the anthropology department at NYU.

Paroled in 1983

He was sentenced Nov. 13, 1980, by U.S. District Charles Brieant to five years in prison and was paroled in 1983.

The new complaint accuses him of attempted murder of a federal official for allegedly mailing the poisoned chocolates to Brieant’s Westchester County home.

The box was accompanied by a Valentine’s Day card marked with a question mark. Mrs. Brieant opened the chocolates, ate four pieces and soon became ill and lost consciousness, according to the complaint.

An FBI lab analysis of the uneaten chocolates found that at least one contained a lethal dose of poison, the complaint said.

A fingerprint analysis of the package revealed one latent impression from Buettner-Janusch’s right-hand little finger, the complaint charged.