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Court ups the ante against Shephard Fairey
By adamg on Tue, 04/14/2009 - 3:43pm
A Boston Municipal Court judge ruled today that when Fairey is arraigned tomorrow on a series of vandalism charges, ten of the counts will be brought as felonies, rather than misdemeanors, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports.
The ruling means that Fairey could now face jail time - up to three years on each count - rather than fines of no more than $100 on each count, all related to his allegedly failing to obey state laws that prohibit defacing public property with posters, even those that are later exhibited at waterfront art museums.
Innocent, etc.
Free tagging:
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Comments
What a joke. This city I
What a joke. This city I mean. This is what they spend their time on????? This is who they throw against the wall? Only in this city could an artist have a huge show and get arrested for it. This place is such a backwards burg sometimes.
artist?
I suppose when somebody gets raped that's a "cultural misunderstanding"? This city is a joke all right but not for the reasons you cite.
Where the hell did you get
Where the hell did you get that from? I would never joke about rape. My point, if you could read, was that the police and courts should be spending more time on serious cases, rather than throwing the book at this guy. God you're an idiot.
central squared
CC what do you think about other "trivial" stuff like illegal parking, speeding, picking up trash before you are allowed to etc etc....
There has to be a line drawn with these quality of life crimes. Everyone gets a few breaks in the court system and I bet Faiery has had some of those breaks. When you continue to break the law (no matter how small it is) you should expect the punishment to be greater and greater.
After all, it was the lawmakers who decided that it was a felony to deface property, not the courts or police.
Did you attend the hearing?
You don't link or credit this story to any other news source, so I'm curious if you were there yourself.
Nope
Just my usual re-writing of a press release from DA's office.
It's up at
It's up at http://www.mass.gov/da/suffolk/docs/4.14.09D.html if you want the full text.
I'm shocked
I thought you took the lightning-fast T around town all day getting these stories.
Naw... that's just my imagination running wild. About the T.
handy example
This will be a handy example next time someone I'm talking to bemoans any suggested cuts to the police force -- they've got this much time to piss away on street artists? Really?
Minority Opinion? Maybe.
Why all the bitching and moaning about public resources being wasted when somebody who despoils public property is arrested and tried? If people like Fairey didn't fuck up public property in the first place, then we'd all save a boatload of money.
As far as I'm concerned, lock him up. I couldn't give a shit less if Fairey sees daylight for the next three years. And maybe throwing the book at one of his kind will send a strong enough message to influence others into not doing the same.
(I rather doubt he'll serve any time, and I also rather doubt that any of the dopes who are of the same ilk would gain any knowledge if he did. I can dream, though.)
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
Assuming ...
Of course you assume that he was guilty of everything he has been charged with.
While he deserves what he gets for skipping out on earlier charges that were better documented, there is more than a little bit of grandstanding pile-on here that strains credulity. Somebody here is trying to build cred alright, and it ain't Fairey. Keep in mind that he's got a whole herd of wooly artistes who like to ditto his work all over the place. It will be fun to put the guy's travel records up against some of these charges. I can't wait to see some prosecutor use what little imagination he or she has to try to convince a judge or jury that Fairey could have flown from LA to Boston in a half hour, or squeezed in a quick tagging trip during a two-week booking in LA just because Boston is special.
I hope he does no time but has to pay for any damage they can actually link to him directly (any bets on how much of the grandstand holds?) - the guy is seriously diabetic, which makes him an expensive prisoner, and worth a mint. All it takes is one of those storied prison health care delivery lapses and some lawyer will make sure that he or his kid and widow get a pension from the Commonwealth that would make a trooper blush.
I dont think he should go to jail either...
but what about all the poor urban kids that get caught in the act doing these kinds of things (tagging) and have to do some jail time or pay some fines when they can't afford it?
I think you really have to start charging the max fine ($1,500 per offense or 3X the amount of the cost to clean it up) and thats for the misdeamenor "tagging" and not the felony "defacement of porperty" which Faiery is being charged for.
If the city made $1,500 for each kid thats caught in the act, we could save some money and possible stop people from tagging more.
All in all, this was not a felony what Faery has done in my opinion. Either way, the lesser offense still carries 2 years in the house of corrections.
Consider This
They probably have him on the older stuff - the stuff he skipped town on. The commonwealth could have been happy to just nail him down on that.
The rest? If any or much of it proves to be piled on or trumped up in any way, he might walk on all of it ... and could then go after the prosecutor for misconduct.
Innocent Until Proven Guilty
Point acknowledged, Swirly. I should have prefaced my remarks by saying, "IF he is found guilty..."
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
"Despoiling public property"
Yeah, and I get pretty sick of looking at annoying and ubiquitous advertisements and billboards in public places, but I don't have any recourse about that, do I? Granted the law is the law, but I have a tough time generating your righteous indignation about the supposed sensory insult inherent in Fairey's vandalism.
Private Property Vs. Public Property
I truly sympathize concerning ads and billboards. I loathe the majority of them. However, the issue with Fairey concerns public property. The ads and billboards are erected on private property with consent of the owners. Fairey, and others like him, consider themselves the arbiters of taste when it comes to public property. That is amazingly arrogant.
(I know an argument can be made concerning your private space being invaded by the ads and billboards and whatnot, and an interesting argument it could be, but it's not the one here.)
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
Righteous Indignation
And that gets you full of righteous indignation?
Me, not so much. So he's a schmuck. There's worse schmucks out there. Try to run me over in a crosswalk, I'll be full of righteous indignation. Stick up Andre the Giant on the back of a stop sign, I'll be mildly amused and mildly non-plussed. Meh, it's stupid. So what? At least it's a little funny, and it's not like there wasn't a big ugly piece of blank grey metal there in the first place.
Worse is the damn mini-billboards erected at the Commuter Rail stations. That's some serious visual pollution there, taking big new chunks out of what used to be a nice view in order to fill them up with tasteless, jangly crap. If Fairey or his stooges 'improved' those a little with some cheezy ripped-off faux-socialist rubylith, it wouldn't make me too indignant.
Vandalism
Suldog, I agree with you. I remember reading this guy put his 'art' up on somebody elses property. When I went to school we were taught this was vandalism. I don't understand the hue and cries of indignation. As far as his stuff on public property, I feel the same way. This guy goaded the City and the police to the point they had to go after him. I think this is all calculated to gain him some sort of notoriety and 'street cred' as the current vernacular goes.
Too bad he never incorporated
If he had only had the foresight to become Shephard Entertainment, Inc. or Fairey Broadcasting, L.L.C., he'd never have to worry about going to jail. It would probably still be expensive, though.
He is old news
No one except middle aged liberal suburbanites care about this guy. It's like they are living vicariously through him. "Yeah, fight the man....obey giant, obey giant!" Get a life. No real tagger cares about or respects this knucklehead. Has he ever been out there in the train yards at 3 am taking real risks? I doubt it... and so does any real "street artist".
Maybe he should call you as a character witness
You can state unequivocally that Fairey must be innocent of any actual vandalism charges on the grounds that he's not a real tagger but a fake-ass lame poser.
It's got to burn you up to think about all the street cred he'll get from going to prison. He'll probably come out with saggy pants and a bunch of new jargon straight from Cell Block Four.
It's your duty to stop that!