Tracknum: .v0311070eb4439e771804 Pubdate: Wed, 27 Oct 1999 Source: Chronicle of Higher Education, The (US) Copyright: 1999 by The Chronicle of Higher Education Contact: http://chronicle.com/ Author: Alison Schneider ANTHROPOLOGIST IS ACCUSED OF USING GRANT TO BUY HEROIN FOR RESEARCH SUBJECTS A City University of New York anthropologist who studies drug use was charged Monday with embezzling money from a federal grant to buy heroin for research subjects. The professor was also accused of using heroin while he was conducting a government-financed study of the drug and of misusing grant money for personal expenses. After a two-year investigation, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York brought charges in federal court against Ansley Hamid, an associate professor of anthropology at CUNY's John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Mr. Hamid, who has taught at John Jay for 15 years and has written extensively about drug culture and the use of crack cocaine, did not enter a plea. After surrendering his passport, he was released on $25,000 bond. The trouble began in June 1996, when Mr. Hamid received a $2.6-million grant from the Department of Health and Human Services for a project called "Heroin in the 21st Century." The purpose of the project: "to track the developmental cycle of heroin use in New York City from 1995 to 2000." According to the government, Mr. Hamid gave $100 of the grant money to an assistant with instructions to buy 10 bags of heroin. The professor told his assistant that "he had junkies coming in from Connecticut to be interviewed for the project, and that Hamid was going to compensate them for their participation with heroin," the complaint said. Law-enforcement officials also accused Mr. Hamid of using heroin while he was the principal investigator for the project. According to the complaint, Mr. Hamid's field notes contain a reference to his "month-long experiment" with heroin use. A government witness confronted Mr. Hamid with the notes, and says that the professor admitted that he had, indeed, tried heroin while working on the project. In addition to the drug charges, Mr. Hamid stands accused of embezzling money to pay for travel and equipment unrelated to his research. The grant was supposed to cover the local travel expenses of Mr. Hamid's research team, as well as excursions to professional conferences. But according to the government, Mr. Hamid used more than $6,500 in federal funds to pay for trips to 46lorida, Hawaii, and Trinidad. None of those trips, the complaint said, had anything to do with Mr. Hamid's project. The government also accused Mr. Hamid of using grant money to pay research assistants a total of $21,200 for work they did on book manuscripts unrelated to his project. Plus, the government said, the professor spent more than $2,000 of federal money on stereo equipment and compact disks. The charges carry a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Mr. Hamid could not be reached for comment, but he denied all of the allegations in an interview with The New York Times. He accused his colleagues of cooking up the charges against him because they were envious of his professional success. The allegation that he used federal money to buy heroin for research subjects is "a total lie," Mr. Hamid told the Times. "No heroin user would go for a deal like that. You can always get heroin. What is scarce is money." As for the admission in his field notes that he had experimented with heroin, Mr. Hamid said: "Field notes are confidential. People often put things in them that are not true." The professor was equally emphatic when asked about the compact-disk purchases, which included recordings by Abba, Mariah Carey, the Jackson Five, Whitney Houston, the Spice Girls, and Louis Armstrong. The music was relevant to his project, Mr. Hamid told the Times: "There is an uncanny correspondence between styles of music and different types of drug use -- between the Rastafarians and reggae, between Miles Davis and Dexter Gordon and be-bop and heroin. They are tightly related." Mr. Hamid's legal troubles landed him in hot water with John Jay, too. Two weeks after the allegations surfaced, in 1997, the college removed Mr. Hamid from the research project and reassigned him to the classroom. John Jay investigated the misconduct allegations against Mr. Hamid and found them to be "credible," the college said in a statement. Last November, the professor filed a discrimination complaint against the college with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The complaint has since been dismissed. In January, the institution suspended Mr. Hamid, and "the college is looking to get rid of him," says Jerry Capeci, a John Jay spokesman. Mr. Hamid's research on heroin use is continuing at John Jay, albeit under a new principal investigator. "Mr. Hamid's arrest yesterday has no effect, in our view, on the project, since he hasn't been part of it for nearly two years," Mr. Capeci said.