New York’s most wanted graffiti artist is retired cop

unmasked the vandal, only to learn that he used to be one of them.

Steven Weinberg has been identified as the graffiti artist who goes by the name “Neo” whose work began appearing in the 1980s.
Much of the sightings of Neo tags are based in Queens – where Mr Weinberg lives – but also have been spotted on up to 16 different train lines throughout the city. Weinberg retired from the New York

Police Department in 2001 after a work injury hurt his leg.
According to Weinberg, he stopped doing graffiti in 1995 when he joined the police as a patrolman, though his former peers beg to differ.

In an anonymous post on a graffiti-makers website, the mysterious man behind the symbol Neo said that he started tagging in Flushing, Queens in 1978, focusing “mainly hitting-up my name on the stairways in my building,” he writes.

“Climbing on rooftops, swinging from elevated platforms, and almost getting hit by trains pulling out, is what I call fun,” he continued in the post.
In the last two years, police have been seeing the Neo tag on new buildings and walls, prompting them to investigate the vandal. – AP.