Shepard Fairey, the Los Angeles based street artist who branded the name OBEY plead guilty last Friday to criminal contempt after he was charged for both destroying and fabricating documents in a civil suit relating to his infringement upon Associated Press Copyright laws.
Fairey earned a lot of recognition in 2008 when he began promoting the Obama Campaign with his now iconic Obama Hope poster. In 2009 the poster gained national attention after Shepard preimptively sued the Associated Press seeking protection under the “Fair Use Act” after they alleged that the image of Obama in his poster had been taken from an AP owned photograph and began contacting him for compensation.

During the preceedings Fairy admitted that the image he used was in fact taken from an AP photograph, only the photograph that Shepard claimed to have used was of a then Senator Obama next to George Clooney.  Shepard claimed that he had altered the work and had used it in an artistic manner to such an extent that his use of the image was protected under “Fair Use”, a doctrine that allows limited use of creative property without permission from the copyright holder.  Unfortunately it was discovered that Shepard Fairey had in fact lied about the source of the image. The actual photograph that Shepard used was an entirely different image of Obama, also AP owned that was incedentally taken by the same photographer.  Fairey apparently “went to extreme lengths to obtain an unfair and illegal advantage in his civil litigation, creating fake documents and destroying others in an effort to subvert the civil discovery process.” according to a statement that was released last Friday by U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara.

Although Fairey had settled the copyright infringment claims with the Assosciated press for an undisclosed amount last year, he was ultimately charged with contempt by a federal court after deleted files surfaced that showed evidence of the fact that Shepard had lied about what photo he had referenced in the Obama Hope poster.  According to a report released by the Associated Press, the government intends on seeking a term of imprisonment for Fairey, who plead guilty to the charges.  Shepard has been released on his own recognisance until sentencing.

Text: Kelso

Meet Omari. A few days ago he returned from the hospital after being hacked in the face by a machete defending an orphanage of 35 children by himself.

SANTA MARIA, Calif. (AP) — A police officer under investigation for sexual misconduct with a teenage minor was shot and killed while on duty by fellow officers Saturday as they tried to arrest him on California’s central coast, authorities said.

The officer was manning a DUI checkpoint when the shooting occurred shortly after 1 a.m. He was declared dead after emergency surgery at Marian Medical Center, Santa Maria police Chief Danny Macagni said in a statement.

The officer, a four-year Santa Maria department veteran, had just learned of the internal investigation of an alleged sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl, and it became necessary to arrest him immediately, Macagni said.

“We had no choice,” Macagni said in video of an afternoon news conference posted by KCOY-TV. He said investigators had evidence “that demanded that we go out and take this officer off the street immediately.”

Supervising officers were sent to make a felony arrest, but he struggled with them when they arrived, first putting up a physical fight, then firing his gun but hitting no one, Macagni said.

“He chose to resist, he drew his weapon, a fight ensued, he fired his weapon,” the chief said.

Several officers came to help the police making the arrest, and one of them shot the suspected officer in the chest once, Macagni said.

Detectives had begun investigating the alleged relationship on Thursday night, and minutes before the shooting had confirmed that an “inappropriate” and “very explicit” relationship had been going on, Macagni said.

He said he could not give details because of the sensitivity of the investigation, but “there was some witness intimidation involved” and the arrest couldn’t wait for a more proper time or place.

“The information that we had in hand demanded that we not let him leave that scene, get in a car, drive somewhere, it would put the public at risk,” Macagni said at the news conference. “We just did not know what was going to happen, we did not expect him to react the way that he did.”

Macagni said police had expressed condolences to the officer’s family.

The officer who fired the fatal shot, an eight-year department veteran, has been placed on administrative leave, and the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department was investigating the shooting, Macagni said.

The name of the officer killed has not been released because some family members were still being notified, and the name of the officer who fired the shot was withheld while the incident was under investigation, police said.

Santa Maria is a city of some 100,000 people about 60 miles northwest of Santa Barbara and 160 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles.