A Florida animal rights activist says discussions of graphic violence against a Wayne State University animal researcher are protected free speech.
Outside her preliminary examination Thursday in Detroit's 36th District Court, Camille Marino, 47, said she never intended to act on the violence she wrote about in an Oct. 22, 2011, e-mail to Dr. Donal O'Leary. The physiologist is in charge of cardiovascular research at Wayne State's medical school and conducts research on dogs and rats.
"I'm not a violent person," Marino told Tammy Stables Battaglia of the Free Press. Marino was accompanied by two women wearing T-shirts with the words "Wayne State murders and tortures dogs" on the back.
Marino is charged with aggravated stalking and unlawful posting of messages online, both five-year felonies, and trespassing. She was arrested May 2 after she chained herself to the doors of Wayne State's undergraduate library, surrounded by posters about O'Leary.
