Man Gets Community Service For Vandalizing Venice's Vietnam Memorial Wall

LOS ANGELES, CA — A second man pleaded no contest Wednesday to defacing the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Venice just before Memorial Day last year.

Luis Daniel Medina, 20, was immediately sentenced to 90 days of community service -- 60 days of graffiti removal and 30 days with the Veterans Administration -- along with 17 days already served behind bars and three years formal probation, according to Ricardo Santiago of the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office.

Medina -- who pleaded no contest to one felony count of vandalism and one misdemeanor count of possession of tools to commit vandalism -- was also ordered to pay $38,750 in restitution and to write a letter of apology to the Veterans Administration, according to Santiago.

Angel Castro, 25, was charged separately and pleaded no contest last Dec. 13 to vandalism. He was ordered to serve four years behind bars and to pay restitution, officials said.

A bench warrant has been issued for a third man, Jose Adan Villa, 20, who failed to show up in court for a hearing earlier this month, according to Santiago.

Vandals sprayed a thick sheen of silver paint over most of the 2,273 names of Vietnam veterans on the memorial last May 26, with four monikers among the names found at the scene, authorities said.

Painted in the early 1990s, the mural has a message at the top reading "You Are Not Forgotten" and bears the names of the soldiers counted as prisoners of war or missing in action in Vietnam.

Though most, if not all, of the paint was removed by volunteers before Memorial Day, the decades-old mural had no protective anti-graffiti coating so some of the original mural was destroyed in the process.

City Councilman Mike Bonin called the graffiti a "horrible insult to those who paid the sacrifice for their nation."

City News Service; Photo credit: Jeff Nguyen/KCAL9