With Guilty Plea, Borf to Try the Art of Graffiti Cleanup

Whether he ends up behind bars will be up to the judge, Lynn Leibovitz. The court's voluntary guidelines recommend a sentence of 6 to 24 months.

But the plea deal includes the cleanup and other penalties.

Under terms of the agreement with prosecutors, Tsombikos will have to pay $12,000 in restitution. He'll have to surrender just about anything he used to make graffiti, including stencils, spray paint and his computer.

And he'll have to do something that might be harder for him than jail time: remove graffiti. For 80 of the 200 hours of community service that he owes, Tsombikos must help rid the District of the sort of eyesores left by graffiti artists like him.

"All the ones of Borf I have left, I will give to him," Butler said. "Let him see the headaches we went through to keep the city clean with his miscellaneous antics."

It won't be the only obligation bringing him to the District.

Tsombikos is scheduled to start classes next month at the Corcoran College of Art and Design, attorney Michael Madden told the judge.

So when the prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Alessio Evangelista, asked the judge to order Tsombikos to stay out of the District until the sentencing, Madden was concerned.

"This is an open city," Madden said, noting the District's status as the nation's capital. And on a practical level, Tsombikos lives in its suburbs and has friends in the District, Madden said.

But Leibovitz was unimpressed, pointing out that the teenager had just pleaded guilty to a felony.

Between now and his sentencing, she said, Tsombikos is allowed to come to the District for classes and court but for nothing else.

And she kept in place an order banning him from carrying art supplies of any sort -- an order that Madden said would be an undue hardship given Tsombikos's studies.