truesee's Blog

Fairey stands between two of his works hanging inside his Los Angeles studio.The Los Angeles graphic designer hasn't gone entirely mainstream.

Fairey was arrested Friday night in Boston on his way to the Institute of Contemporary Art to DJ at a sold-out party kicking off his first solo exhibition, “Supply and Demand.” Two arrest warrants had been issued Jan. 24 after police determined that he had tagged property in two locations with his street art campaign featuring Andre the Giant and the word "obey," said Boston police officer James Kenneally.

Fairey, a commercial artist and graphic designer, is to be arraigned Monday, said Jake Wark, a spokesman for the Suffolk County district attorney.

The art institute told the Associated Press that Fairey was released a few hours after his arrest.

The AP also received an e-mail from Fairey's attorney Jeffrey Wiesner. "Shepard Fairey was completely unaware that there were any warrants for his arrest. Had he known, he would have resolved all such issues before the opening of his art exhibit at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston," Wiesner said.

Fairey's Obama image has been sold on hundreds of thousands of stickers and posters and was unveiled last month at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington before Obama's inauguration. But the artist is embroiled in a dispute with the Associated Press over whether he illegally used a copyrighted AP photo to produce his Obama poster.

Fairey had spent the last two weeks in Boston installing his solo exhibition at the institute, giving sold-out public talks, being honored by the Rhode Island School of Design (his alma mater), and creating and unveiling outdoor artworks. Those included a 20-by-50-foot banner called "Peace Goddess" on the north side of City Hall and two murals on the Tufts University campus.

The Boston Globe reported that Fairey previously told the paper he had been arrested at least 14 times. On Friday, more than 750 people were awaiting his appearance at the art institute when he was apprehended.

"The street thing is an outlet for me," Fairey told the Los Angeles Times in 2007. "It's the freedom of it that's really exciting."

Yet he added, "I don't have this obsessive need to do street art all the time because it's already opened doors for me. I'm now able to do things that won't be cleaned in a day, that won't get me arrested."

The Institute of Contemporary Art said in a statement Saturday that "we believe Shepard Fairey has made an important contribution in the history of art and to popular thinking about art and its role in society."

Its show, which opened Saturday, is a 20-year survey of his art. His influences include such artists as Andy Warhol and Keith Haring.

Institute spokeswoman Donna Desrochers said attendance was high on opening day, "but we expected enthusiasm for the exhibition before the police arrested the artist, so we can't say what impact it has had."

       An officer in South San Francisco made quick work tracking down a SanBruno burglar Thursday, after he left a sledgehammer with his name on it in a vehicle he broke into, according to police.

Police Sgt. Mindy Lopez responded to 670 Gateway Blvd. at about 1:30 p.m. to investigate two vehicle burglaries that occurred overnight, according to the South San Francisco Police Department.

Construction worker Jerry O'Grady, 46, was identified as a suspect when Lopez located a sledgehammer in one of the burglarized vehicles with the name "Jerry O'Grady" written on it, according to police.

A review of the suspect's criminal record showed O'Grady was on active probation with San Mateo County law enforcement, allowing Lopez to conduct a probation search at his home, police reported. Stolen property from the burglarized vehicles was allegedly located throughout the residence.

O'Grady was arrested for burglary and possession of stolen property and booked at San Mateo County Jail, according to police.

EAGAN, Minn. – An elementary school principal could be disciplined for allegedly forcing a 6-year-old boy to unclog a toilet with his bare hands. The principal of Rahn Elementary has been on paid leave since mid-December while the school district investigated a complaint from the boy's parents. The school board proposed disciplinary action on Thursday. The nature of the discipline wasn't made public.

The boy's parents claim their son told them the principal made him clean out a toilet bowl that the boy had accidentally clogged on Dec. 12. The boy told his parents he wiped himself with paper towels, instead of toilet paper, causing the clog.

The principal declined to respond to the claims Thursday. He also didn't say what disciplinary action was proposed and whether he'd appeal.

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Information from: Star Tribune

WHITTIER, Calif. – The veil of secrecy octuplets' mother Nadya Suleman shrouded herself in for more than a week was lifted Thursday with the release of public documents showing that the 33-year-old struggled with depression for years until she finally began to realize her childhood dream of having a huge family.

Suleman, who now has 14 children, told doctors she battled with depression for years after she was injured in a riot in 1999 at the state mental hospital where she worked.

The doctors' reports were included in more than 300 pages of documents released to The Associated Press by the state Division of Workers' Compensation on the same day NBC released excerpts of Suleman's first interview since giving birth last month. Among other things, the documents reveal that Suleman collected more than $165,000 in disability payments between 2002 and 2008 for an injury she said left her in near-constant pain and helped end her marriage.

Meanwhile, Suleman told NBC what her mother and others have said since the octuplets were born: that she always wanted a huge family to make up for the isolation she felt as an only child.

"That was always a dream of mine, to have a large family, a huge family," she said. "I just longed for certain connections and attachments with another person that ... I really lacked, I believe, growing up."

In the interview — scheduled to air on the "Today" show Monday and again Tuesday on "Dateline" — Suleman calls her childhood "pretty dysfunctional."

In the state report, however, doctors indicate she had a happy childhood. She told them she was an above-average high school student, enjoyed being a cheerleader, had many friends and stayed out of trouble. She said her parents were loving and supportive.

As an adult, however, she said she often battled depression as she struggled to get pregnant and particularly after her injury.

In the report, Suleman told a doctor she had three miscarriages. Another doctor disputed that number, saying she had two ectopic pregnancies, a dangerous condition in which a fertilized egg implants somewhere other than in the uterus. She told NBC she struggled for seven years before finally giving birth to her first child in 2001 through in vitro fertilization.

She told a doctor who conducted a psychological evaluation for a workers' compensation claim that the first birth was "the most wonderful, best thing that's ever happened in my life."

Suleman said all her children have been born through in vitro fertilization, with sperm donated from a friend. The first six range in age from 2 to 7. The octuplets are doing fine, said officials at Kaiser Permanente's Bellflower Medical Center, where they were born Jan. 26.

According to the state documents, which were released to the AP following a public records request, Suleman was injured Sept. 18, 1999, when a riot involving nearly two dozen patients broke out in the women's ward of the Metropolitan State Hospital in Norwalk.

As she was helping other staffers restrain a patient, a desk thrown at her by another patient hit her in the back. It caused damage to her spine and left her complaining of headaches and intense pain throughout her lower body for years.

She attributed it in part to the breakup of her marriage to Marcos Gutierrez, whom she had wed in 1996. She told a psychiatrist the bouts of depression she was suffering as a result of her injury were unfair to her husband.

"I don't want to keep bringing him down. I want him to move on with his life," she told a psychiatrist.

The couple split in 2000 and divorced last year. Gutierrez has not returned calls to phone numbers listed for him, and his divorce lawyer, Roberto Gil, declined comment.

Suleman has come under criticism from TV and radio commentators, bloggers and others who accused her of irresponsibly having more children than she appears prepared to care for. Some say she had the octuplets to cash in with a TV or book deal.

Although the two publicists she hired last week acknowledge she is reviewing such offers, one of her friends said Suleman simply loves children and didn't get pregnant for profit.

"She's not even interested in that right now," said Jessica Zepeda, who lives down the street. "It's funny and sad in a way, there's a lot of people saying really negative things and they don't know her."

Suleman's mother said she expects people's opinions to change now that her daughter is going public.

"She's a very likable person," Angela Suleman said Wednesday. "She's basically normal except for this obsession she's always had with children."

She's also a good mother, Angela Suleman said.

Her daughter, who was born in Fullerton, studied to be a psychiatric technician after graduating from a high school in La Puente in 1993.

She received a bachelor's degree in child and adolescent development from California State University, Fullerton, in 2006 and was studying there for a master's degree in counseling when she became pregnant with the octuplets.

"She may not be able to finish her master's degree now and she was so close to wrapping it up," her mother said.

Publicist Mike Furtney said Nadya Suleman has told him it's her dream to eventually earn a Ph.D. in some field involving counseling.

Public records show Suleman was listed on the Metropolitan State Hospital payroll from 1997 until last year, though it appears she did little work after September 1999 because of her injury.

Furtney said Thursday that Suleman was "feeling great" and looking forward to being reunited with her octuplets, who are expected to remain in the hospital for several more weeks.

"She's happy to be out of the hospital, although she misses her children," he said. "She can't wait until they join her."

The octuplets were born nine weeks prematurely and will be released from the hospital individually as they hit a near-normal newborn weight.

"At this point in their development, they are not mature enough to coordinate the suckling and swallowing at the same time to be bottle-fed," said Dr. Mandhir Gupta, the hospital's neonatologist.

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Associated Press writers Shaya Tayefe Mohajer, Raquel Maria Dillon and Thomas Watkins contributed to this report.

Juneau County District Attorney Scott Southworth agreed to drop the mental harm and theft counts in exchange for Bushey's plea, according to online court records.

Bushey, 58, of Necedah, faces up to 10 years in prison and $25,000 in fines. His sentencing is set for May 5.

His attorney, Thomas Steinman, didn't immediately return a telephone message left at his office Thursday. Southworth's office declined to comment.

Prosecutors accused Bushey and follower Tammy Lewis of leaving 90-year-old Magdeline Middlesworth's body on a toilet in Lewis' home after she died there in March.

A criminal complaint said Bushey led the Order of the Divine Will sect and told Lewis that God would revive Middlesworth. The decaying body was found in May after Middlesworth's family expressed concern.

Lewis pleaded no contest in November to obstructing a police officer and was fined $350.

PATNA, India (Reuters) – An Indian court sentenced a 75-year-old doctor to jail for accepting half a dollar (35 pence) as bribe nearly a quarter of a century ago, officials said on Wednesday.

India's federal police caught Balgovind Prasad accepting 25 rupees (51 cents) from a sweeper in 1985 for issuing a fake medical certificate, police said.

The case dragged on for years and Prasad was convicted in 1992 and given a one-year jail term. He was freed as he appealed the sentence.

On Tuesday, a higher court in India's eastern state of Bihar state reduced the one-year term to three months, saying the bribe amount was too small, but directed the police to take Prasad into custody as he was guilty of the crime.

"The case was also dragging and the bribe money was too small, so Prasad thought he would get a reprieve from the court," prosecution lawyer Vipin Kumar Sinha told reporters after the verdict. "But all the charges has been proved against him."

Indian justice is often delivered at a glacial pace and a case can drag for decades with endless hearings.

(Writing by Bappa Majumdar; Editing by Alistair Scrutton and Sugita Katyal)

 

VIENNA (Reuters) – An Austrian woman has begun a 500-day jail sentence for ignoring parking tickets and failing to pay a cumulative fine of around 24,000 euros ($30,860), police said Tuesday.

They said the 38-year-old civil servant from the southern city of Graz was jailed after ignoring 700 attempts by local authorities to notify her of the fines over a 2-year period.

"Of course we have had people ignore three, four, five or even 10 reminders, but 700 ... that is unheard of," said police official Herbert Mattersdorfer.

A police spokesman said that under Austrian law, the woman could only spend 42 days at a time in jail for this offence, so her term would be split into several stints behind bars.

(Reporting by Sarah Marsh; Editing by Nick Vinocur)

 

Associated Press

6:20 PM EST

2/03/09

CLEVELAND – Police in Cleveland say a man called 911 because he felt he was in danger — then asked the dispatcher to hold on while he made a drug deal. Police Lt. Thomas Stacho said Tuesday that Alejandro Melendez was arrested after the call and was charged with possessing cocaine.

Police said Melendez called 911 late Saturday and reported that two men with guns were watching him.

Police records show he hung up, so the dispatcher called back.

Melendez answered and asked the dispatcher to hold on, but the dispatcher could still hear what was being said.

A voice can be heard on the recording of the call saying: "What you need? A 10-pack? You need a 10-pack? All right." Police say "10-pack" is slang for a bundle of heroin.

The dispatcher called police, who found Melendez at the location he gave, had the dispatcher call his cell phone again, and said they found cocaine in his trousers.

There was no immediate indication Tuesday if Melendez, 20, had an attorney to speak for him.

 

BY DAVID HINCKLEY
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Mazur/WireImage

Singer Jennifer Hudson performs during the pre-game show prior to the start of Super Bowl XLIII between the Arizona Cardinals and the Pittsburgh Steelers.