Tagger Given 9-Month Jail Term, Ordered to Pay $34,000 : Graffiti: Under a plea agreement, the 19-year-old student also must serve 100 hours of cleanup duty.

A Calabasas student pleaded guilty Monday to felony vandalism for tagging along the Ventura Freeway in Sherman Oaks and was sentenced to nine months in County Jail and ordered to pay $34,000 in restitution.

Under a plea agreement with prosecutors, John Azim Lake, 19, a student at Indian Hills High School, was also placed on three years probation and ordered to serve 100 hours of graffiti cleanup.

The sentence is believed to be among the stiffest ever ordered in the Los Angeles courts for tagging.

It drew immediate praise from community leaders--particularly the $34,000 in restitution Lake was ordered to pay by Van Nuys Municipal Court Judge Leslie Dunn.

“Hopefully, this will do two things,” said Richard Close, president of the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Assn. “One, it will discourage taggers from doing this. Two, it will shift the cost from the city to the culprit.”

Currently, the city of Los Angeles spends more than $4 million annually to eradicate graffiti.

“Right now, it’s mostly city money being spent on the cleanup, which diverts money away from hiring police officers,” Close added.

Eric Rose, a spokesman for Los Angeles City Councilwoman Laura Chick, said the sentence was “in line with what Laura believes--that you have to hold graffiti vandals responsible for their actions.”

Added Ardean Smith, 75, a member of the Panorama City Graffiti Busters, a volunteer group that spends weekends washing walls: “I think it’s a good idea. He probably should pay a little more.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. James Bozajian, the prosecutor in the case, said Lake was arrested following an investigation that began earlier this year when a witness notified authorities of graffiti along the Ventura Freeway.

Ultimately, Bozajian said, Lake was connected to at least 28 incidents of graffiti between April, 1994, and March, 1995, with an estimated damage of $34,000.

If Lake had been convicted at a trial, he faced a maximum sentence of three years in prison, Bozajian said.

He added that the plea bargain was appropriate because Lake was ordered to pay for the cost of cleaning up his scrawlings and will have to clean up other graffiti.

If Lake fails to make a good effort to pay the restitution within three years, his probation will be extended an additional two years, the prosecutor said.

Graffiti cases are usually prosecuted as misdemeanors--not more serious felonies--because they typically involve single incidents with damage of less than several hundred dollars, according to Deputy City Atty. Richard A. Schmidt, head of the Van Nuys office.

In cases involving damages of less than $1,000, Schmidt said, the maximum sentence is six months in jail and a $1,000 fine. For cases with damage between $1,000 and $5,000, the maximum sentence is one year in jail and a $5,000 fine. Cases involving damages of more than $5,000 can be prosecuted as felonies, where the maximum sentence is the three-year state prison term.

Schmidt said first-time misdemeanor offenders are usually sentenced to graffiti removal with no jail time.

However, second-time offenders are usually sentenced to some time in jail in addition to the graffiti cleanup. The jail time can range from 10 to 180 days, he said.

Lake has been in custody since his arrest April 11.

Prosecutors decide whether to file felonies on a case-by-case basis, Bozajian said. “You generally don’t get that many adults because most people outgrow that kind of behavior,” he said.

But in the Lake case, he added, there was “clearly a need to do something,” noting that “there is a general outrage in the community at this kind of behavior.”

In December, an alleged cohort of Lake’s also pleaded guilty to felony vandalism.

Like Lake, Jaime Rodriguez, 21, of North Hollywood, was sentenced to nine months in County Jail and 100 hours of graffiti cleanup. He was ordered to pay restitution of $12,000 for nine scrawled walls, Bozajian said.

Another alleged associate of Lake’s, Albert Perez Jr., 21, of Agoura, was arrested May 2 and is awaiting a preliminary hearing on felony vandalism charges. He is accused of scrawling graffiti at three locations, causing $7,800 damage.