DETROIT -- As part of its campaign to stop the spread of graffiti in the city, the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office is using an investigative subpoena in order to get a Wisconsin man today to give them information about graffiti artists.

Prosecutors employed the subpoena to interview Michael Welch, 28, of Lac Du Flambeau, Wis., under oath, said his attorney, Marlene Newton, and Assistant Wayne County Prosecutor Christopher Coyle. Last week, Paul Alaga, 24, of North Highland, Calif., was interviewed under subpoena for less than a hour, said his attorney, Carin Goldberg.

Both men pleaded guilty July 1 to misdemeanor charges of malicious destruction of a building after they were arrested and jailed on June 11 for illegally spray-painting a building in the 2600 block of West Grand. They are being held in the Wayne County Jail on a a $40,000 bond pending sentencing Aug. 8.

Welch and Alaga will be held until sentencing -- 60 days in custody -- and remain on probation for another year and clean up graffiti under an agreement accepted by Wayne Circuit Judge James Chylinski.

Wayne County Prosecutor Michael Duggan vowed last month to take a hard line against people who spray-paint grafitti on Detroit buildings. "We don't call them artists, we call them criminals," Duggan said on June 25.

Leaders of communities from Detroit to Ferndale to Washington Township agree with Duggan. They regard graffiti as a nuisance that never goes away.

But Newton said she's outraged that prosecutors used an investigative subpoena to make Welch and Alaga testify. Such a subpoena gives a person immunity for their answers under a 1995 Michigan law that is used by law enforcement during felony investigations.

"To the best of my knowledge this is the first time that an investigative subpoena has been utilized on such a minor offense," Newton said. "They're asking my client to inform on people that they really don't know under threat of perjury and a possible 15-year prison term. That's incredible to me."

Newton said she advised the men to reject an earlier plea agreement that called on them to name others who spray paint graffiti.

But Alaga was cooperative during his interview, Coyle said.

"The majority of graffiti is ... along Rosa Parks" near Wayne State University, Coyle said.

Welch and Alaga are nationally known graffiti artists and were invited to Detroit to do murals on the Second Street Laundromat near Wayne State, a separate building from the one on which they illegally painted graffiti.

"I love what they did on my building," said Milan Cronovich, the laundromat's owner, earlier this month. "My building had been covered with bad writing."

You can reach David Shepardson at (313) 222-2028 or mailto:dshepardson@detnews.com