‘Penis Man’ Grafitti Tagger is convicted and fined in Tempe

“Penis Man” emerged as an unlikely counterculture hero last year after a mysterious graffiti artist started painting these two iconic words on prominent local buildings, including Tempe City Hall.

But now is the time for the Phoenix man behind the manly vandalism to pay the bill.

Dustin Shomer, a 39-year-old Japanese-speaking student with some eccentric political ideas, was sentenced this week to three years of supervised probation and ordered to pay $ 8,000 in damages. A four-month postponed sentence will be removed from the sentence if he does 500 hours of community service, according to the terms of a court agreement he signed in December.

Shomer did not respond to messages asking for comment.

In an interview last year with Phoenix New TimesShomer described himself as a prolific copier, not the original “Man of the Penis” tagger. Police confirmed that Shomer was not the only one to scribble the name on public and private buildings. But he was certainly the most daring.

Graffiti started appearing in the city in November 2019, especially in Tempe, where Arizona State University is located. Social media users started posting photos of the vandalism, which led to a popular ABC15 News report about the markings that made the Man of the Penis legend grow.

Tempe police began to actively search for the suspect after he became much more active in January, painting Tempe City Hall, chamber pots in Town Lake, ASU dormitories, the big “A” at Hayden Butte, the historic Mill Hayden Flour, and various businesses. In Phoenix, he marked a building in the city of Phoenix, a Curaleaf dispensary and the Arizona Democratic Party headquarters. (Six months later, the last building was destroyed in a fire caused by a Democratic activist.)

The tagger has also become more political.

“Rents go down, wages go up!” he wrote on the windows of ASU’s Music West building. “PENIS MAN fuck the venture capital!”

Social media users, fed by new photos of the work, swallowed it all up. “I am willing to support whoever wins the primary, as long as they have the endorsement of the man with the penis,” wrote a tweeter.

Tempe police arrested Shomer on January 23, but did not tell the public about it until Shomer posted on his Facebook site that “25 heavily armed SWAT officers” broke into his Phoenix condo. This turned out to be an exaggeration, but Tempe police later confirmed that the operation involved about 15 police officers, including a K9 officer and four members of the tactical team wearing a helmet.

Police did not catch Shomer in the act, but claimed to have found ink that was still fresh and damp in his backpack. It looked like Shomer had taken his superhero status a bit far: the cops also found a pair of gloves in the condo, one with the letter “P” and the other with the letter “M”.

In his report, Tempe police said Shomer confessed that he was influenced to write graffiti after hearing from friends about previous Penis Man markings in the city.

“Dustin explained that writing PENIS MAN across the city was to start a movement against investors and developers who are moving to Tempe and Phoenix and causing housing and rent that are no longer accessible,” the report said.

In his interview with New Times, Shomer described himself as a “lazy, unemployed musician” who was fired from a customer service job a month before MLK weekend appointments. He has lived in Germany for nine years and has a Japanese degree from ASU.

He expressed irrational ideas about the markings, claiming that “people from my childhood are trying to kill me” and speculating that local politicians were behind the original markings that came before him. He said he was receiving help for mental health problems.

He was charged with a total of 33 crimes and misdemeanors, facing theoretical 24 years in prison if convicted on all charges. Thirty-one of the charges were dropped after he pleaded guilty to aggravated criminal damage / disfigurement of a school and attempted to break into a critical public service facility. Both are crimes.

Superior Court Judge Teresa Sanders sentenced Shomer on Tuesday. If he fulfills all the terms of his probation, including the payment of the refund, the crimes will be reduced to misdemeanors and he will not serve four months in prison. He was also forced to seek mental health services.

“Following the advice of his lawyer, the defendant stated that the police reports are an accurate description of the crime,” says the report presenting the case. “The defendant believes that the pleas of the plea agreement are fair. These are his first criminal offenses and he had no intention of harming anyone. He was having a manic episode and does not believe that imprisonment would be an appropriate sanction for that.”

The $ 8,000 in refund for cleaning work, paid at a rate of $ 25-35 per month by Shomer, will go to: the town of Tempe, Vela Apartments, Best Western Hotel, Aura Watermark Apartments, U-Haul, Fenix ​​Devlopment , ASU, Muse Apartments, Urban Living on Fillmore, Chick-fil-A, Taylor Morrison Apartments, Arthaus, Arizona Democratic Building, Curaleaf AZ Midtown and the city of Phoenix.

New Times spotted some Penis Man graffiti brands last year – all small-scale things in discreet locations. Shomer’s experience with the law apparently left others less willing to promote the idea that, as several people tweeted last year, “We are all men of the penis”.