A 33-year-old Brooklyn engineer says he was arrested last July after law enforcement identified him as the elusive street artist Banksy. But the officers were dead wrong.
In 2014, Richard Pfeiffer and his fiancé stopped to admire a smiley face mural on the side of an East Village coffee shop. While looking at the piece, cops accused Pfeiffer of the vandalism after they discovered he was carrying a marker. However, the marker tip didn’t match the smiley face drawing, and the piece wouldn’t smudge—proving it was done long before Pfeiffer was around.
The cops didn’t accept this proof, and took the engineer to jail, where he was held for 24 hours before being released by a judge.
Pfeiffer, who has no criminal record, is now suing the city as well as six officers for false arrest. He claims he lost seven days of work at $45 an hour and now has to take medication to help him sleep. According to the NY Post, he is suing for unspecified damages.
[via NY Post]
