"Shorty 140" was the signature of a notorious graffiti tagger with an uncanny ability to escape the authorities time and time again. But like most repeat offenders, he was eventually caught. "This subject, Shorty 140, had been beating us up pretty good along the parkways," said a captain who commanded the vandal task force in charge of preventing and minimizing graffiti.
Alberto R. Rodriguez, 33, who had lived on Long Island and in College Point, Queens, was charged in a Queens criminal court complaint with criminal mischief and the felony crime of making graffiti. Investigators said they had catalogued thousands of tags across the city in a database, including renditions of the Shorty tag. An officer had even watched a man draw the tag at the intersection of the Cross Island Parkway and Union Turnpike months earlier. Eventually, Rodriguez was picked up by police in a Queens DWI case, and it was then that he was charged with the graffiti offenses.
What this Queens DWI case shows
This one is unusual, but it makes a point that comes up constantly: a DWI arrest opens a door. Once you are stopped, identified, and processed, anything else the police connect you to can follow. A DWI stop is often how unrelated charges surface, which is one more reason the lawfulness of the initial stop matters so much, if the stop was not justified, everything that flows from it can be challenged.
Whatever brought you into contact with the police, the DWI itself is defensible on its own terms. A Queens DWI lawyer who has prosecuted these cases can separate the drunk-driving allegation from the noise around it. See how the defense is built.
This write-up is drawn from public news reports at the time and is preserved here for general information only. A charge is an accusation, not proof of guilt, and every person is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty. Nothing here predicts the outcome of any other case, and nothing here is legal advice.