Graffiti Vandal Gets Into Another Brush With Law

“If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem,” was once a catch phrase. William Arluck got 90 days in jail for carrying it to literal extremes.

Arluck, arrested for painting gang slogans on walls and sentenced to clean up graffiti, converted the sentence into an opportunity to perpetrate even more of it, prosecutors complained.

Arluck, 18, of San Fernando pleaded no contest Tuesday to vandalism charges and was sentenced by San Fernando Municipal Judge Juelann Kathey to 90 days in jail and two years formal probation.

Arluck was ordered to spend 10 days working for Graffiti Busters, a community group dedicated to eliminating graffiti from the San Fernando Valley, after pleading no contest to previous vandalism charges in Van Nuys Municipal Court on Dec. 27, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Elijah Richardson.

A Graffiti Busters staff member, however, said that instead of painting over graffiti on a wall near Gladstone Avenue and Hubbard Street in Sylmar on Jan. 15, Arluck was adding his own graffiti. She made a citizen’s arrest on the spot, Richardson said.

Arluck was painting “U.S.C.,” which the prosecutor said stood for “unstoppable criminals”--a gang that may consist solely of Arluck, Richardson added.