A woman charged with defacing the World War II Memorial in DC with graffiti calls herself a “homeless freedom fighter” in bizarre, paranoid videos before she allegedly spray painted the monument.
In a series of rambling posts leading up to the devious act she was charged Friday with committing a day earlier, Melissa Farris claimed she is under federal wiretap, and spoke about “golf carts with people shooting my house from the vacant property next door in Kentucky.”
“I fled for my life,” she claimed in one Facebook post. “I was shown the federal wiretap. I know that it’s on,” she said.
She faces felony charges of depredation against property and destruction of veterans’ memorials and was being held Friday.
Farris, 41, also accuses the feds of malfeasance of either $2.5 billion or $2.6 billion including “incidentals” – and says the government should be forced to fund favored programs as punishment.
These include “nerf guns and scooters” for orphans in Detroit, as well as “dog beds and supplies” in Lucas County, Ohio and a “jet for the Make a Wish Foundation.”
“I tried to blackball the government,” she says, before referencing treble damages for convicted fraudsters.
In another video she performs what she described as a “dance party” in front of the White House and says she is “planning the revolution.”
She also complains about a $9.6 billion Biden Administration Energy Department grant for building a trio of battery manufacturing plants for Ford electric vehicles. “Revolt. With 30 sec phone calls. Take democracy back,” she posted on Facebook on Thursday.
Farris also urged people to send her money through Cash App to a friend to buy “paint” hours before she allegedly trashed the memorial to the 16 million Americans who fought in the war.
But the friend, Maxwell Cuprys, told The Post he didn’t know about it in advance and hopes a cleanup crew can remove the graffiti.
“It’s a very nice monument. Veterans should be be looked after,” he said.
He says he last heard from Farris the day she turned herself in. “I’m not part of her choice to do this. I’m a little disappointed. I do think she’s a good person deep down,” Cuprys said.
