A Letter From Ket (Update On His Trial)

I remember seeing a thread a few weeks back asking about his status... Well, here's an email that he sent out Monday afternoon summing it up... -----------------------------------------------------------------10-08-07Dear friends and supporters,I am relieved and happy to be sending out this email update on mysituation. The lawyers have removed the gag order on me and emailcorrespondence, finally. All along their concern was for my freedom and mycase being impacted by my writings in public since there are???confidential informants??? that have received my emails in the past. Inany event I am now free to discuss my cases again.As many of you might have heard in the news I have plead guilty to eachcase against me. After a year of dealing with this ordeal it???s almostover. I plead guilty to one charge in each case only. The deal that mylawyers worked out yielded the following: three felony convictions on myrecord, $15,000 in fines, a mural as community service to be painted by mefor Brooklyn, and a 3-year conditional discharge. It???s a tough deal butone that involved no prison time.Many of you might want to understand why I would even take a deal since Ihave maintained my innocence during this process. First I must explain thathaving three cases running simultaneously is huge and costly. Having threetrials back to back would have cost me in excess of $150,000. That???s$150,000 that I do not possess. Second, the risk was too great for me to goto trial. Odds are that if I would have gone to trial I would lose at leastone and get hit with the max and do state prison time. I did not want torisk my freedom it seemed crazy and stupid. Lastly, the circumstantialevidence against me was too strong. I do go by the name Alan Ket or justKet. Regardless if I painted anything or not that fact remains that since Iam knows by these names a jury might very well convinced that it was methat painted all the alleged crimes. Instead my lawyers and I worked forweeks with the Manhattan DA to come to a solution, a middle ground that Icould live with.So where I am today is home, as a convicted felon, happy to be free anddone with the courts but owing them lots of money and in debt. I have mybeliefs about graffiti and public art intact. Yet, now I know a great dealmore about the justice system here and the corruption that exists on allits levels. And of course I am angry, angry that this had to happen to mein this way. That all this money was spent, better yet wasted, when thereare so many more important things to spend our collective time and energyon. But the system needs to be fed, so there I was, food for the system anda great way to get back at me for my past work. A good scapegoat for thepress I guess.What???s next for me is the big payoff. I will be raising money to finishpaying off my legal bills, fines, etc. This will be done in the form ofanother art event and online auction. Many people have approached me tohelp and I have great new art from fantastic artists to sell. Besides thatI will be launching a few initiatives to raise awareness and challenge theway New York City deals with these ???art crimes??? and at the same timehelp others in my situation. Especially now that the norm will be to breakinto artist???s homes and harass them with phony allegations.I hope that the support that you have given me to date continues. I doneed your help in purchasing art. I also need your help and support andraising awareness about over prosecution of art crimes and petty crimes byNew York City???s DAs. And lastly, I need your continued support of thisart movement. The creators of this art form need to be accepted notcriminalized, they need opportunities to sell art and display it and not beimprisoned. I have hope that you will be down with it and with me.Please check out the site (www.supportket.org) for event listings, artwork, and updates. And in the words of Andy Warhol,???art is anything you can get away with.???Warm regards,AlainPS- In the coming weeks I will post all my legal motions, court documents,etc on the site in order to help out people with similar cases. The motionseach cost over $10,000 so why spend more money when plenty of basicresearch has been done and paid for by me already.