The turd who upset St. Pete's tight-knit community of working artists by scribbling "Facebook.com ——-> HTWOO the artist" on a handful of lovely downtown murals has allegedly been caught, police say.According to the Tampa Bay Times, Jonathan Scott Corbett, 24, was already in jail on violation of probation charges when police charged him with three counts of felony criminal mischief and three counts of misdemeanor criminal mischief.
Corbett, who has been in jail since Feb. 16, has a longer-than-average rap sheet. Prior to his Feb. 16 violation of probation arrest, he had four other arrests in the past three years for crimes like grand theft, dealing in stolen property and domestic battery.
Obviously, the criminal justice system needs to do its job to prove he actually did it rather than lay the charges on him, knowing that he'd rather plead out than defend himself and ultimately lose because the public defender's office ain't got time for that shit.
So, innocent until proven guilty.
But still...
We were kind of hoping this kid was some kind of genius visionary who was trying to make us think about our perceptions of what qualifies as art as well as art's true intention — to be aesthetically pleasing, or to provoke thought and social change? And, in defacing those brilliant murals we've come to embrace in our urban landscape, isn't the artist, just asking us to take the next evolutionary step in terms of the ever-present question, What. Is. Art? Or some shit?
So if this guy actually did it, we expect a full-on dissertation on what the hell he was thinking.