Just Now Getting Around to Prosecuting Graffiti from the 1980’s

Here’s how you know they will never crack down on today’s defacement of the subway. The feds are just now getting around to cracking down on notorious subway graffiti artist from the 1980’s.

He claimed that he had moved beyond graffiti, exhibiting his art in galleries, lecturing at universities and working as a commercial artist, but yesterday, as part of a three-borough plea bargain with prosecutors, the legendary 1980s graffiti creator known as Alan Ket pleaded guilty in Manhattan to leaving his art on subway cars from 2004 to 2006. [NY Times]

Ket (aka Alain Maridueña) is going to pay $12,000 in fines to avoid jail time.

The police actually served him with a warrant (13+ years later) to search his home. They seized his computer and a variety of other “graffiti related materials.” Apparently, some of them were collectors items from the 60’s and 70’s.

So rather than go after current offenders, they are more worried about getting those 80’s punks before a judge.