A building in between two primate research centers is the rightful property of an animal rights group, a Dane County circuit court judge ruled Monday.
The building's owner, Roger Charly, signed a contract with the Primate Freedom Project to sell the property for $675,000 but later attempted to sell it to a group related to UW-Madison that offered him $1 million.
Primate Freedom Project founder Rick Bogel said Charly negotiated and signed a contract with the organization before negotiating with the university.
""When the university found out what we were doing they stepped in and offered him a significantly larger amount of money,"" Bogel said. ""He took them up on their offer and basically let the thing go to court.""
The PFP intends on building an exhibition hall on the property to showcase ""the history and current use of monkeys and apes in publicly funded experimentation."" Bogel said the group hopes to host speakers and hold conferences and workshops at the facility.
Joseph Kemnitz, director of the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center, said, ""I think it would be unfortunate if they did establish a museum there but I would again say that today's decision does not guarantee that that's going to happen. We really need to wait to see how the process plays out.""
Jon Manzo, one of Charly's attorneys, said he expects Charly to appeal Monday's decision, though he would not say on what grounds.
""An appeal is certainly a logical next step,"" said Kemnitz, who added that although the case was between the PFP and Charly, ""We're certainly a very interested third party.""
University research spokesperson Terrance Devitt said the university did not and does not intend to pay Charly's legal fees.
Bogel nonetheless said he ""assumed that it was the university who is basically paying his legal fees.""
""If [Charly] loses then he'll be out all of our legal fees as well, which in fact the judge ordered him to pay today,"" Bogel said. ""The only reason that a businessman would be willing I think to lose and continue to lose money is in fact if he was being repaid for that somehow. Having dealt with the university on these sorts of issues in the past I know that they're fairly underhanded in their dealings.""
Kemnitz said the primate research center has hoped to obtain the property to expand their facility, and claims that such an expansion would allow the primates better living conditions and replace individual cages with social housing.
""We're in a continual process of modernizing and expanding our facilities so that we can take better care of the monkeys and continue to develop our research programs,"" Kemnitz said. He called the building ""an island surrounded by university-owned property,"" and said it is logical that the university should own it.
The PFP's purchase was funded by an interest-free loan from Dr. Richard McLellan, who Bogel describes as having ""a long involvement in animal cruelty issues.""
The decision confirming the PFP's ownership of the property comes one week after the passing of federal legislation that defines threats from animal rights activists against researchers as acts of terrorism.
