Jury Backs Graffiti Artists Who Sued Over Destroyed Work

A federal jury has sided with a group of New York graffiti artists who sued over the destruction of their work.

A judge will now decide whether the artists must be compensated for the loss of their whitewashed murals.

The jury’s advisory ruling came Tuesday in the lawsuit over the site in Queens known as 5Pointz.

Owner Jerry Wolkoff allowed the spray-paint artists to use his buildings for decades but said they always knew the buildings would be torn down someday.

The graffiti was painted over in 2013, and the buildings were torn down in 2014.

The artists sued Wolkoff under the Visual Artists Rights Act, a 1990 federal statute that protects artists’ rights even if someone else owns the physical artwork.