Las Vegas artist doing volunteer work wrongly handcuffed, jailed overnight
What thanks did artist Justin Lepper receive for volunteering to paint grimy walls with lions and zebras after-hours at a Las Vegas school? Justin was wrongly arrested. Although he showed his authorized key to the building to police officers, he was still handcuffed, ordered to change from his street clothes into stained prison garb and crammed in a cell with 20 prisoners overnight.
“To go to jail for the first time at 36 years of age was surreal — having my freedom taken away while trying to do a good deed. It turned out to be a great experience, though, because it made me appreciate my life even more. I will never forget how good it felt to be in fresh clothes and sunshine again — free another day to create more art and help more people,” he said.
Justin, aka Dr. Lepper, has been a fixture in the arts scene since moving here in 2004 from Indiana. His Dr. Lepper’s Design Studio is known in The Arts District, and most recently he co-founded The Eden Gallery inside The Arts Factory. His work has been exhibited at The Smith Center, Coachella and Electric Daisy Carnival.
Justin uses free time to teach art to at-risk youth, which led to him volunteering to spray paint the walls of a neighborhood school. The administration sanctioned his presence and gave him a key, but he was carted off to jail for “breaking and entering” and “destruction of private property.”
Now on Nov. 4 at the next First Friday Downtown, he’ll exhibit his incarceration with an art show at Skin City Body in Downtown Spaces. “It memorializes my night in jail and serves as a cathartic cleansing of the ordeal,” he said.
