He Can Fiddle While BART Police Burn
A classical violinist who is fiddling his way through college has won a court order allowing him to play at Bay Area Rapid Transit stations without fear of another arrest.
Nicholas Leiser, 33, a computer science major at San Francisco State, said he was “feeling very good” about the order by U.S. District Judge Samuel Conti on Friday.
Leiser had been cited by BART police 14 times, thrown in jail twice and had his instrument seized and returned three times. He was never prosecuted despite the police charges of soliciting funds and use of unlawful sound equipment.
“These arrests are implying that I was committing some kind of offense,” he said. “The playing of Mozart and Bach is not an offense.”
BART representatives declined to comment.
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