“Family Rights” Activist Arrested in Lyons
Louise Hoffman Broach / Wayuga Editor
Wednesday, February 3 2010
John Murtari, who writes his message regarding family rights on
public buildings and sidewalks in chalk, was arrested last week for making graffiti.
LYONS - A familiar fixture in the fight for what he calls “family rights,” local activist John Murtari has once again been arrested for writing his message in chalk on the walls of a public building. Murtari, 53, of 34 Franklin St., was charged Jan. 27 with trespass, making graffiti and possession of graffiti making materials, in this case, sidewalk chalk. He is accused of writing on the Wayne County Courthouse at 26 Church St. and refusing to leave when asked to do so. 
Arraigned before Lyons Village Justice Nicholas Forgione, Murtari was sent to the Wayne County jail in lieu of $1,000 cash or $2,000 bail bond. Murtari is imploring state Assemblyman Robert Oaks to propose legislation that would require notification of biological fathers when a child is born and presume that all parents are fit and equal unless the government can prove otherwise through a jury trial. The messages, which he has been writing on the sidewalk in front of Oaks’ office, on the walls of the Wayne County Hall of Justice and now on the courthouse read “Mr. Oaks Help Family Rights.” 
Founder of the nonprofit organization A Kids Right, Murtari is the father of a now-16-year-old boy who lives across the country with Murtari’s ex-wife. In 2006, Murtari served a six-month sentence for failure to pay child support. Murtari claims he fell behind in his child-support payments because the payment amounts were calculated based on an income level he no longer had. What little extra money Murtari did have was usually spent traveling across the country to see his son Domenic, he said. While in jail in 2006, Murtari refused food or water and instead received his nourishment through a feeding tube inserted through his nose. He did so not to harm himself, but to protest what he called an unjust family-court system that he felt had wrongly taken away his son and sent him to prison, all without a jury trial. Subsequently, Murtari also has been arrested several times for writing on the ground in chalk in Lyons and in Syracuse, in front of the Federal Building. He has adopted tactics of nonviolence from the writings of Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi. On his website, AkidsRight.com, Murtari writes of his son: “His love keeps me motivated. I can’t forget all the needless pain I have seen him go through because of the ‘system.’ Many of you have kids who don’t even want to see you -- I don’t know how you stand it? I would never trade places with you. In the last seven years I have flown out there four times a year for visits, and two times a year to pick him up for vacations here. How many of those could I have traded away -- and not lost our relationship? I did not want to find out. You?”
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