A controversial conservative artist was photographed in Manhattan hanging up one of the mysterious Donald Trump traffic signs that went viral last week, despite previously denying responsibility.
A now-deleted photo posted on Reddit Tuesday appeared to show Scott LoBaido and two accomplices installing one of the unauthorized street signs featuring a silhouette of Trump and his signature coif near Third Avenue in Manhattan.
“Saw these 3 zip tying Trump signs to light posts,” the post read. The image showed the artist, under the cover of darkness, standing on a ladder with his arm around the pole. Another man helped while a third, wearing a baseball hat and sunglasses, held one of the “Trump crossing” signs.
Commenters quickly identified LoBaido, a well-known Trump diehard from Staten Island notorious for his public protest art.
“That’s f–kin Scott LoBaido,” wrote one Reddit user. “He often does stunts like this,” wrote another.
In May, LoBaido released 100 pink, penis-shaped balloons outside the Manhattan courthouse where the current Republican nominee’s hush money trial was taking place.
“He is the same guy who threw pizza at city hall,” said another, referring to a LoBaido stunt in March in protest of a plan to ban coal and wood-fired pizza ovens in Big Apple restaurants, which got him arrested.
Perhaps his most famous protest came in 1999 when he threw horse manure at the Brooklyn Museum for displaying a controversial elephant-dung-infused portrait of the Virgin Mary.
The same day the sign photo was shared on Reddit, LoBaido posted on Instagram that he was in Manhattan and noticed the “Trump sign bandit struck again.” He showed off about a dozen more of the signs, hung along a stretch that included anti-Trumper Robert De Niro’s Tribeca Grill on Greenwich Street, to the New York Times building in Midtown, to Battery Park City and 3rd Avenue.
In another Instagram video posted on his account, several of the unmistakable signs can be seen in the background of his studio.
Just days earlier, when The Post first reported the signs multiplying in Brooklyn and Staten Island, LoBaido told the paper it wasn’t his work. But “it is quite clever,” he added.
Observers pointed out another solid clue that LoBaido was behind the Trump signs — in fine print at the bottom of the signs is a serial-style number: S4665L.
LoBaido’s birthday is April 6, 1965.
The city Department of Transportation has pledged to remove the unauthorized signs but it is unclear if they will seek to punish the perpetrator. The NYC Administrative Code prohibits the posting of such materials on public property, including on lampposts and telephone and utility poles.
First offenses are punishable by a fine of $75 to $150.
Additional reporting by Katherine Donlevy and Michael McWeeney
Read the full article here
