New York Daily News

No use for graffiti guy ‘Zeus’: cops

- BY THOMAS TRACY

Graffiti “god” Zeus has drawn his last thunderbol­t.

“Zeus,” the tag for Queens resident Paul Kaufmann, was arrested by cops Friday after he showed up to an unrelated court case in Nassau County, officials said.

It was actually Zeus’ love Hera who did him in: An outraged exgal pal gave police Kaufmann’s name after he tagged her building, a source with knowledge of the case said.

Through his Zeus tag, Kaufmann, 42, was linked to two incidents from last March, when he allegedly drew 4-foot high bubble tags on the sides of A trains at the Ozone Park-Lefferts Blvd. station and at the 104th St. station, cops said. He’s also accused of leaving his tag on the side of “Spanglish,” a restaurant on Bell Blvd. in Bayside.

Cops said the Zeus tag has been found on train cars and on the sides of constructi­on sites for more than a year.

Kaufmann was charged with criminal mischief, possession of graffiti instrument­s and making graffiti, cops said. His arraignmen­t in Queens Criminal Court was pending Saturday.

“Yesterday, members from the citywide vandals task force arrested a suspect for making graffiti on multiple trains throughout NYC,” the NYPD tweeted. “The NYPD is committed to eradicatin­g graffiti on our streets and will continue to tirelessly investigat­e and arrest those committing these crimes.”

In the Nassau County case, Kaufmann had been in criminal court for sentencing on an assault case from June 8, officials said.

Over the last year, bolder graffiti vandals have been leaving massive tags on MTA trains, some taking up the entire side of a train car. The trains were left in tunnels overnight when they were vandalized.

Cops last year speculated the big-picture taggers weren’t from the city.

“We certainly have homegrown people that do graffiti from time to time, but we also have people that do this for a living and they come here and they travel from city to city, in some cases from out of the country,” Police Commission­er Dermot Shea said at the time.

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