(MTA), a crew Smear was suspected of having once been a part of. Members of that MTA crew were accused of perpetrating a quarter-mile long graffiti which is claimed by many to have been the largest single work of graffiti in the world. Following that 2009 sweep, Gheorghiu/Smear spent about a week in jail, but charges against him were never filed. In June 2010, the L.A. city attorney filed a civil lawsuit against 11 alleged members or alleged former members of the MTA crew, Gheorghiu being named in that lawsuit as one of the alleged members or former members of the crew. The suit had asked for $5,000,000 in restitution from the 11 defendants and was seeking a first-of-its-kind injunction against a graffiti crew, an injunction modeled on those made for violent street gangs. One of the provisions sought would prevent Gheorghiu from using his graffiti name "Smear" in his art work. "It raises extreme 1st Amendment issues, " said Peter Bibring, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, who is representing Gheorghiu. "The government shouldn't be in a position of saying you can't make art from certain materials". On March 16, 2011, the Los Angeles Times published a column one front page profile on Cristian Gheorghiu/Smear chronicling his rise from scrawling his name on the streets of the city to being an art world habituée. That same evening after that paper hit the stands, Gheorghiu's home was raided but Gheorghiu was not at home; he was arrested the following day when he turned himself in. He was arrested for alleged probation violation. Gheorghiu's attorney, Peter Bibring of the ACLU, said L.A. deputies told him they planned to show that Gheorghiu possessed "graffiti tools" in his home, and that that was "a violation of his probation" and "merited new charges". On March 24, 2011, Los Angeles County Superior Court judge Marcelita Haynes sentenced Gheorghiu to 13 days in jail and 45 days of community service, adding that his success as a tagger-turned-artist could help inspire young graffiti writers to take their art into the studios. On June 20, 2012, the civil case against 11 alleged members of the MTA crew named in the suit was settled with the 11 defendants no longer required to pay the city of Los Angeles millions of dollars for graffiti cleanup. The city agreed not to enforce the injunction against 8