Man Who Destroyed Trump’s Hollywood Star Is Ordered to Pay Nearly $9,500

A 24-year-old man who destroyed President Donald Trump’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame with a pickax in July reached a plea deal on Wednesday requiring him to pay nearly $9,500 for the marker’s replacement.

The man, Austin Mikel Clay, pleaded no contest to one felony count of vandalism, according to a news release from the Los Angeles County District Attorney Office. Under the plea agreement, a judge ordered him to pay $9,404.46 to the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, which manages the Walk of Fame. That represents the actual cost of repairs to the star, said Leron Gubler, chief executive of the chamber.

In a YouTube video published shortly after the vandalism, Clay said his destruction of the star was a “one-man protest” against the president and the Republican Party. “For as long as that star remains on Hollywood Boulevard, there’s going to be a really negative presence there,” he said in the video.

Clay, of Glendale, California, was also sentenced to three years of formal probation, one day in county jail (which he already served) and 20 days of community labor, according to the news release. He must also attend psychological counseling.

The episode on July 25 was the second time Trump’s star had been destroyed in less than two years. James Otis, 54, who tried to remove Trump’s star by smashing it with a pickax and sledgehammer in October 2016, was dealt a nearly identical punishment to Clay’s — except the cost of repair in his case was $4,400.

Prosecutors said Clay used a pickax to smash the pink star, which is made of terrazzo and brass. Clay left the scene but turned himself in to the police the next day, the news release said.

Gubler said Trump’s star was fully repaired by early September. The HollywoodHistoric Trust, a nonprofit organization, is in charge of repairing the stars.

David Pourshalimi, Clay’s lawyer, said on Wednesday that his client’s decision to destroy Trump’s star was prompted by his administration’s practice of separating migrant children from their parents after they crossed the U.S. border. That was the “last straw” for him, Pourshalimi said.

“He thought he was really doing the people of the United States a service,” he said, “that he was doing an act of goodness.”

In Clay’s YouTube video, he listed several political reasons that he decided to target Trump’s star, including the separation of migrant families, Trump’s relationship with President Vladimir Putin of Russia and the Trump administration’s environmental policies. Clay also called on the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce to leave the star off the sidewalk.

But the chamber has long kept a policy that keeps it from removing stars for any reason, Gubler said. In 2015, a petition sought to have the chamber remove Bill Cosby’s star because of allegations of sexual misconduct against him, but the chamber rejected that request, saying it has a duty to preserve the Walk of Fame’s history.

Gubler said the chamber does not plan to change its policy over one star. “For all the people saying we should remove the star, there are just as many people who say you shouldn’t,” he said of Trump’s marker.

The cost of getting a star on the Walk of Fame is now $40,000, which is typically paid by a sponsor for the celebrity who applies for the star. When Trump’s star was installed in 2007, for his NBC show “The Apprentice,” the cost was about $20,000, Gubler estimated.

Gubler said he thought this episode’s outcome would send a message that there are consequences for vandalism. In recent years, an artist built a six-inch “wall” around Trump’s star, and others smeared ketchup on it and painted it purple.

“We hope people learn that there are better ways to express their displeasure with Donald Trump,” Gubler said.