Canadian police officers and Dalhousie University are investigating a fake video posted last week on YouTube that shows an engineering professor supposedly acting as a pimp for members of his family. Tom Traves, president of the university in Halifax, Nova Scotia, told the CBC that the video is not only a fraud but also a hate crime.
He said the video contained racist material with anti-Muslim overtones, in addition to the sexual content. The video was yanked from the Web site after Dalhousie officials contacted YouTube. Whoever posted the fake video sent an e-mail message on Thursday, supposedly from the professor, to hundreds of people on the campus, directing them to the site.
Once the video became known on the campus, President Traves sent a message to people at the university, condemning the film clip and promising “to take all legal measures possible.” So far there’s no proof that the posting came from inside the university or from a university computer.
CTV reported that the video showed pictures of the professor’s family with background audio from a pornographic movie. Words appeared on the screen to indicate that the professor was acting as a pimp for his wife and two daughters. A spokesman for the university, Charles Crosby, said the professor was very upset, as are colleagues and students. —Karen Birchard
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