Cyrus Yazdani, the Los Angeles tagger made famous through a YouTube video, has cashed in his viral stardom — for a four-year prison sentence. He's hardly the first delinquent done in by a Web video.

People have viewed more than 500,000 times Yazdani's 2007 daredevil stunt, in which he spray paints an LA freeway overpass from a narrow ledge. The viewers included sheriff's transit investigators, who nailed Yazdani for 32 felony vandalism counts out of hundreds in which they came to suspect him, according to the LA Times. He originally got off with time served, probation and graffiti removal duty, but he violated his probation this summer with more tagging, so now he's been sentenced to three years and eight months in prison, thanks to his YouTube-enabled criminal record.

YouTube has emerged as the medium of choice for our nation's most self-destructively brazen criminals and miscreants. It's an amazingly powerful way to get in trouble with the law! In addition to having a buddy upload your tagging exploits, you can...

  • ...be a cop and shove a rider off his bike for no good reason, on YouTube;
  • ...be a bigshot tech executive who snorts cocaine, on YouTube;
  • ...beat a cheerleader unconscious, on YouTube;
  • ...work for Domino's and do disgusting things with food, in their kitchen, on YouTube. (This one won't necessarily land you in jail, it's just a bonus item for those who prefer national infamy to prison time.)

It's important to note that these are only the most self promotional of wrongdoers, not the worst. Everyone knows that the absolute worst criminals stick to Craigslist and Facebook.