Graffiti artist plead guilty to mischief of property and must help victims of his vandalism

Judge orders "tagger" to help his vandalism victims

- Michael Hudey won’t have much time now for graffiti and spray paint.

- A judge has sentenced the convicted “tagger” to 20 months house arrest and ordered he perform 440 hours community service work — ideally for people whose property he vandalized.

- “That’s better than coughing up some money,” said Judge Lynne Stannard. “You have to meet the people you hurt.”

- Nearly half of the community service work is to be completed during three years of supervised probation.

- Hudey, 24, pleaded guilty last summer to approximately 50 counts of mischief to property.

- Hudey was one of six busy graffiti taggers arrested in a police round-up in late 2008. Hudey and two cohorts were arrested in November after going on a tagging spree along Tache Avenue and Provencher Boulevard.

- Police caught the trio with cans of spray paint and other “graffiti paraphernalia,” their hands still wet with paint. Hudey’s cellphone was found to contain several pictures of his work that night.

- “The city of Winnipeg is not a canvas to be painted upon,” Stannard said Tuesday. “These are people’s properties and they work hard to maintain them.”

- Community prosecutor Susan Helenchilde said Hudey has kept his hands clean since his arrest and is working full-time as a cook.

- According to a pre-sentence report, Hudey told a probation officer he “defined himself as a graffiti artist, stating that mechanics work on cars, hence artists paint.”

- “I hope that is not Mr. Hudey trying to justify painting on property that belongs to other people,” Helenchilde said. “I take it that he gets it now.”

Hudey said he did.

- “I always liked graffiti. I grew up with it,” he said. “I never saw the victims behind it. It was just paint on buildings.”

- Stannard adjourned sentencing last summer to consider further submissions on a restitution plan. Court heard Tuesday only one of Hudey’s victims has submitted a receipt for repairs to vandalized property.

-“I can’t order an amount of restitution that I probably think is appropriate,” Stannard said. -“It’s concerning to me that we weren’t able to receive that sort of information.”

I think that this is an appropriate sentence for this man, but I also feel that he should be shown alternate ways in which he can express his artistic side, besides graffiti.