A West Hartford, Connecticut man admitted last month that he only scribbled seemingly anti-Trump, left-wing graffiti on an elementary school playground to make it appear as though someone on the left had written it, not him.
Steven Marks, 32, is seen on surveillance video writing what was later found to have said “Kill Trump,” “Bernie Sanders 2020,” “Death to Trump,” and “Left is the Best.”
According to a warrant for his arrest, the Hartford Courant reported, Marks scribbled the graffiti “out of ‘anger towards liberals and they are breaking major laws everyday and being disrespectful towards our government.’”
He told police, the Courant reported, that after finding a marker nearby he “‘had the dumb idea to vandalize the school with what would seem to be liberal hate speech.'”
A Hartford Community Court judge told Marks on Wednesday to stay away from the school, the Courant reported. A prosecutor asked the judge to continue the case so Marks had time to discuss restitution with the town of West Hartford.
In a separate interview with the Courant on June 30, Marks said he had written apologies to the school’s principal and students’ parents, and called his actions “stupid, stupid, stupid.” The paper reported Marks turned himself in after seeing surveillance video released by police.
