UCSD Student Wants Trial in FBI Agent Biting Case

Vowing to fight for her principles, an 18-year-old UC San Diego student flatly rejected a government compromise Thursday and declared she was prepared to face trial on charges of biting an FBI agent during a campus demonstration.

After a brief negotiating session with a federal prosecutor, the student, Kristen Crabtree, pleaded not guilty in U.S. District Court to one felony count of assaulting a federal officer.

“It’s a matter of principle,” she said after her court appearance before Magistrate Barry Ted Moskowitz. “I feel I’m innocent. I feel I need to fight it. If I don’t fight it, I’m not doing my duty as a citizen.”

Confrontation at Job Fair

The charge stems from a confrontation between Crabtree and FBI Special Agent Marene Allison at a UCSD job fair May 14.

Crabtree was in a group of 20 students protesting FBI recruiting on campus. Allison objected when Crabtree photographed her. The alleged assault occurred when Crabtree bit Allison’s hand as the agent grabbed at Crabtree’s camera strap. Crabtree says she acted in self-defense.

Negotiations over the possible deferral of Crabtree’s prosecution on the charge broke down over the FBI’s insistence that Crabtree give up her rights to the photographs.

Crabtree says she took the pictures on behalf of the New Indicator, a leftist campus publication, and thus is constitutionally entitled to use them however she wishes. But the FBI does not want photographs of Allison circulated, for fear that they would compromise her occasional work as an undercover agent, according to Assistant U.S. Atty. Kevin McInerney.

On Thursday, Crabtree said she also objected to the government’s insistence that she turn over the results of a blood test conducted as a condition for her release from federal jail after her arrest.

“That’s a violation of my rights as well,” the anthropology and economics major said.

Further negotiations appear futile, she said, predicting that the case will go to trial.

“I feel I have been done an injustice and that a lot of my liberties have been denied,” said Crabtree, who faces a maximum punishment of three years in jail plus a $250,000 fine if she is convicted. “The government was meant to work in a different way than what they’ve been doing to me.”