Ket copped out

Cops: Graffiti guy pleads guilty to defacing subway trains

BY PETE DONOHUE – NY DAILY NEWS
Friday, September 28th 2007, 4:00 AM

One of the “Godfathers of Graffiti,” a pal of fashion designer
Marc Ecko, has pleaded guilty to felony charges of defacing
subway trains, authorities said yesterday.

Alain Mariduena, 36, won’t be imprisoned under his plea
agreements. But Mariduena – who tags his work KET – will
have to pay more than $12,000 in fines and restitution, and
could quickly wind up behind bars if he’s nabbed again.

“He’s a three-time loser now,” one high-ranking law enforcement
official said. “If he takes another pinch, he’s going to jail.”

Mariduena, of Manhattan, started tagging trains as a teenager in
the 1980s and achieved international notoriety. He painted at festivals
in Europe and lectured college students in the 1990s. He started pop
culture and fashion magazines, worked as an artistic consultant and
toiled on an Atari graffiti video game designed by Ecko Unlimited.
”
He’s considered one of the Godfathers of Graffiti,” said Sgt. Kevin
Cooper of the NYPD’s Transit Bureau. “All the younger writers in the
area all look up to him.”

He allegedly tagged nine subway trains parked overnight on unused
tracks in tunnels and vandalized a subway station and a building between

2004 and late last year. With information gathered from surveillance and
interviews with graffiti writers nabbed by police, cops obtained a search
warrant for Mariduena’s Inwood apartment in October, Cooper said. They
discovered photographs of the defaced subway trains, some with Mariduena
standing before his work, on his computer, police said.

Mariduena pleaded guilty to felony criminal mischief in recent weeks to settle
ases brought by prosecutors in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens.