Judge Ends Frog Embryo Smuggling Case Against Harvard Scientist
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A federal judge in Massachusetts has dismissed the criminal case against Kseniia Petrova, the Russian-born Harvard researcher accused of smuggling frog embryos into the United States. U.S. District Judge Leo T. Sorokin issued the order Wednesday, a day after prosecutors asked the court to drop the charges, NBC News reported.
The dismissal ends the prosecution but leaves open a question that two federal judges had considered worth examining: whether the government unfairly targeted Petrova. Her lawyers and the Justice Department describe the reasons for the outcome very differently.
How the case reached this point
According to NBC News and ABC News, Petrova was detained by customs agents at Boston's Logan International Airport in February 2025 after returning from Paris. Officers reported finding undeclared biological samples, including frog embryos, paraffin slides and other material. Petrova has said the samples were part of her research.
NBC reported that her J-1 scholar visa was canceled after the detention and that she was placed into immigration proceedings. Earlier this year, a judge in Vermont ruled the cancellation unlawful. In May 2025, while she was in immigration detention, prosecutors charged her with smuggling goods into the country. ABC reported she was ordered released from custody a month later while the charges remained pending.
What prosecutors say
In court filings Tuesday, prosecutors argued that continuing the case would pull significant time and attention away from more substantial federal interests, according to ABC News. They wrote that the resource costs of going forward outweighed the public interest in resolving it.
NBC reported that prosecutors also pointed to an April order from a federal magistrate judge. That order allowed Petrova to seek evidence supporting her claim that she was being prosecuted vindictively. Prosecutors said they considered her claims of vindictive and selective prosecution to be without merit. But they said responding with evidence would require disclosing non-public information about the operations and investigative techniques of U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
What Petrova's side says
Petrova's legal team welcomed the dismissal but said the prosecution should never have been filed. A statement quoted by both outlets said the Justice Department “never should have brought this highly unusual ‘smuggling’ prosecution.” NBC attributed the statement to attorney Daniel N. Marx, while ABC attributed the same language to attorney William Fick, so reports differ on which lawyer spoke.
The statement said two federal judges had found the suspicious circumstances warranted further investigation into whether the Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department unfairly targeted her. It added that this question will not yet be answered. NBC reported that the lawyer described the samples as inert, non-living and non-toxic, and said they never posed a danger to anyone. He called Petrova a talented scientist working on medical research into aging.
Petrova herself told ABC News, while held in a Louisiana detention facility, that she believed her treatment was too harsh. She said something was “completely, completely out of control here” and that her case showed how the system does not work.
What it means for Petrova and for similar cases
For Petrova, the dismissal removes the criminal charge that has been pending since May 2025. The sources do not describe any remaining immigration steps in her case beyond the Vermont ruling that her visa was unlawfully canceled.
The broader question is unresolved. ABC reported that Petrova was detained as the Trump administration moved to revoke hundreds of student visas as part of its immigration crackdown. Because prosecutors dropped the case before evidence on vindictive prosecution was produced, the court record will not include answers about why she was targeted. The government has said it considers her claims meritless, while her lawyers say the circumstances were suspicious. Neither claim has been tested.
What is at stake in the unanswered question
The dispute turns on a trade-off that prosecutors described openly: defending against the vindictive-prosecution claim would have meant revealing details of Customs and Border Protection methods. Dropping the case avoided that disclosure. For Petrova's lawyers, the same decision means the court will not examine whether the government acted improperly, even though two federal judges had found the issue worth pursuing.
