Tagger Hit by $100,000 Cleanup Fee for Graffiti

A Calabasas man who police say graffiti-tagged his way from Los Angeles to the Canadian border has been ordered to pay $100,000 in restitution to cover cleanup costs, authorities said Monday.

Timothy Jody Badalucco, 20, who was extradited to Los Angeles from Seattle last year to face charges of felony vandalism, also must spend 1,000 hours cleaning up graffiti, under a plea agreement approved by Superior Court Judge Maureen Duffy-Lewis.

“We are trying to send a message that it’s not worth tagging anymore,” said California Highway Patrol Officer Randy Campbell, who tracked Badalucco to Washington state. “People are tired of the blight and the costs associated with removing it.”

Campbell, the graffiti task force coordinator for the CHP, said that Badalucco defaced dozens of buildings, freeway signs and other property between February 1995 and May 1996.

Badalucco, who was sentenced last week, has admitted to tagging since age 12, Campbell said.

He was first arrested for spray-paint vandalism in 1993, and his parents were assessed a $43,000 fine in the case.

A probation officer will monitor Badalucco to ensure that he is complying with all the conditions of his probation, including paying restitution, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Lia Martin.

“Typically, the probation officer will come up with a payment plan,” Martin said. “If he violates those terms, the court will step in and he could face up to one year in County Jail or three years in state prison.”

It does not preclude other areas from filing charges, Campbell said.

“I’ve personally seen his moniker in San Luis Obispo. I’ve had people tell me he’s been in San Francisco. A Los Angeles MTA officer has seen his moniker in Vancouver,” Campbell said.

Campbell first noticed Badalucco’s handiwork--the letters GKAE--in downtown Los Angeles in 1994.

Still, it wasn’t until months later that the officer made the connection of GKAE with GANKE, which Badalucco had spray-painted on property until his 1993 juvenile arrest for vandalism.

Campbell tried surveillance but could not catch Badalucco in the act.

Meanwhile, Badalucco thumbed his nose at the law, appearing on a television talk show bragging about his tagging exploits, and was written up in a tagger magazine, Campbell said.

But last summer, Badalucco’s luck changed. On an Internet chat room for taggers, Campbell found that someone who went by the initials GK had moved to Seattle. Campbell quickly set about warning Seattle authorities and sent them copies of Badalucco’s graffiti.

Within months an officer caught him vandalizing a building at the University of Washington but let him off with a just a citation. Soon afterward authorities got their man.

“When he was a juvenile he was never forced to pay for his crime, Campbell added. “Now, all of a sudden he’s in jail and looking at state prison. I believe this opened his eyes a little bit.”