Boberick was out walking around VCU the night of Nov. 30, he says, when he came across a parked VCU police car. “I only saw the car because it was white,” he says. “Perfect white. Didn’t have a mark on it.”
That canvas proved too tempting for Boberick, who scrawled his tag in blue marker on the rear bumper of the car. He was reluctant to reveal his tag to Style last week. “It’s dumb,” he says. Steve Nuckolls, who attended Boberick’s trial in his capacity as chairman of Richmond’s Clean City Commission, says it was “Logic757,” a reference to Boberick’s home area code.
Boberick was a block away from his dorm, he says, when Officer Duane C. Thorp with VCU Police showed up on a bike. “He seriously came out of nowhere,” Boberick says.
The freshman was arrested and charged with seven counts of destruction of property, including four walls and a garage door.
He’s not an expert tagger, Boberick says. “I’m not anything special. This is the first time I ever tried to go out and do something like this.”
Boberick was hoping for leniency in Friday’s sentencing. Instead, he says, the watchful presence of Nuckolls and another representative from the Fan District Association “screwed things up.” Graffiti is a serious and costly epidemic in the city, Nuckolls says.
Richmond General District Court Judge Phillip L. Hairston decided not to prosecute three charges and ordered Boberick to serve 100 hours of community service and 10 days in jail, to be served on weekends. Boberick may face additional penalties from the university. Boberick says he’s remorseful: “If I could take it back I would.”
