Case: 23CR19249 August 3, 2026
Portland, OR- Shelalah Rostami, 29-years-old, was sentenced to 24 months’ prison on August 3, 2026 for ‘tagging’ multiple properties in the greater Portland area. Her sentence includes three years of probation after she finishes her sentence. If she tags again after release from prison, she faces an additional 36 months in prison.
Rostami was convicted on 7 counts of Criminal Mischief in the First Degree.
She was ordered to pay $126,600 in restitution. Victims of her tags included Salt and Straw, Grocery Outlet, PGE and ODOT. This was the defendant’s first arrest.
Senior Multnomah County Deputy District Attorney Kevin Demer represented the state at sentencing. After the sentencing he said:
“Our community provides many legitimate avenues where people can artistically express themselves. Damaging other people’s property, and particularly mural artwork that others paid for and that the community enjoys, is unacceptable. Disagreeing with a message or artwork does not give anyone the right to criminally deface it. My hope is that this prison sentence for a person’s first arrest for graffiti causes others to pause and think before engaging in this behavior.
The Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office would like to thank the Portland Police Central Neighborhood Response Team and particularly Sgt. Nathan Kirby-Glatkowski and Ofc. Amelia Flohr for their excellent work on this case.
THE FACTS:
In the Fall of 2022, Portland Police investigated multiple reports of graffiti tags that seemed to be similar in individual style, and all appeared connected to the same tagger. These tags were “THULA”, “LADY THUJA” and “LADY T”. Often these tags were on top of existing artistic murals that businesses had arranged to have on their buildings, including where the business had paid artists to create the murals.
Some of the tags were also on public highway structures. Through investigative work, police connected the tags to a social media website where it appeared that the tagger was making comments about their own tags. Only the tags above (THULA etc) were featured on the social media website. One of the posted comments was “Gentrifying Murals = Police Graffiti Abatement = Controlled, Monitored & Censored Self Expression #ACAB”
The police investigation determined that the social media site was owned by Rostami.
A court-ordered search of Rostami’s house located enough used spray paint cans to fill two large trash bags full of cans.
###MCDA###