CALIFORNIA BRIEFING / LOS ANGELES
Graffiti tagger Buket, whose brazen defacement of a sign over the Hollywood Freeway was posted on the Internet, was charged Tuesday with five counts of felony vandalism and probation violations from two previous court cases.
In December, a judge sentenced Buket, whose real name is Cyrus Yazdani, to 10 months in a Los Angeles County jail, 256 hours of graffiti removal and five years of formal probation after he pleaded guilty to nearly three dozen counts of felony vandalism.
He was released from jail at that time, based on credit for time served, but faced the prospect of three years in state prison if he violated the terms of his sentence.
Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies arrested Yazdani last week after they found new Buket tags on a mural on the Hollywood Freeway, a South Los Angeles business and on the 7th Street and Cesar Chavez bridges over the Los Angeles River. The total damage was estimated at $14,000.
Yazdani, who is expected to plead not guilty, allegedly committed the crimes between late December, when he was released from jail, and March 31.
-- Andrew Blankstein
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