8 Year Graffiti Sentence Reduced

Published by Tyler Hakes on December 22, 2009 at 5:26 am

A Texas judge who sentenced an 18-year-old graffiti artist to an eight-year state jail term without the possibility of parole has been forced to lessen the punishment to two years of jail and two years of probation.

State District Judge Marisela Saldaña ordered Sebastion Perez to serve four consecutive two-year prison terms for three charges of vandalysm and an additional charge for possession of marijuana in her original ruling on December 11. The sentencing took place after a brief emotional display by Perez–pleading for parole and a chance to finish high school. After a fiery rebute from Judge Saldaña, the maximum possible punishment of two years for each of the four charges was sentenced.

The punishment was lessened however when it became clear that Judge Saldaña had unjustifiably compounded Perez’ four separate terms. Under a new state law, which went into effect earlier this Fall, punishments cannot be “stacked” in cases like Perez’. His sentence was reduced to two years in jail followed by two years of probation.

Perez is allegedly responsible for tagging upwards of two dozen pieces of private property near his Corpus Christi home. The eighteen-year-old Perez caused roughly $7,300 in damaged over a six-month period and pleaded guilty to all four charges in the initial hearing.

This comes as the second high-profile graffiti-related case to come from Texas in under a year. In early August of this year Ralph Mirabel, 19, was sentenced to serve three consecutive 8-year prison terms (24 years) for tagging upwards of 30 properties.