Last week in Minnesota a state worker named Dylan Bryan Adams was arrested for vandalizing multiple Teslas. As David pointed out here, Adams is not a college student who got over-excited, he’s a 33-year-old man who did this over and over, resulting in about $20,000 in damage to six different cars owned by complete strangers. And yet, Adams will be given a slap on the wrist. Progressive DA Mary Moriarty decided to give him diversion so he won’t go to prison and won’t even lose his state government job.
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said at the time of the incident that the damage in each case was the equivalent of a felony…
“The Minneapolis Police Department did its job. It identified and investigated a crime trend, identified, and arrested a suspect, and presented a case file to the Hennepin County Attorney Office for consideration of charges,” he told KARE in a statement.
“This case impacted at least six different victims and totaled over $20,000 in damages. Any frustration related to the charging decision of the Hennepin County Attorney should be directed solely at her office.
Moriarty was asked about the decision not to charge Adams with felonies and offered a nonsense excuse about public safety.
“We are and always have been focused on public safety. And if you look at the data on recidivism — in other words, when people come through the [justice] system, how often do they come back?” Moriarty said. “If they go through the traditional system and they have a felony conviction on their record, they are much more likely to come back and commit a new crime. That is because a felony conviction destabilizes their lives, they can lose their job, lose their housing, and it can just lead to future criminal activity.”…
“This case was submitted to us by police, we did not decline it, we looked at the case. What we really wanted was for the victims in that case to get restitution and for this person to be held responsible,” Moriarty said. “We are accomplishing both of those by requiring him to go through a diversion program and to pay restitution to all six victims.”
She’s basically arguing that a felony record would be so tough on Adams he might turn to a life of violent crime. That seems pretty ridiculous in the case. Essentially, she is giving Adams a do-over so long as he agrees to pay for all the damage he caused.
It was pointed out to Moriarty that another person with was just charged with a felony for keying a car and doing less damage overall than Adams did in his vandalism spree. In that other case the car vandalized was not a Tesla. So why is this particular person, who keyed six cars, catching a break?
“Should we have treated this gentleman differently because it has become a political issue?” she said. She continued, “We seek…to make decisions that are not about politics.”
This is nonsense. Contrary to her claim, vandalizing Teslas did not “become” a political issue, it originated as a political issue on the left. In this case, overlooking that for a guy who vandalized six cars to make a political point seems political in itself. So long as other people who vandalized a car for non-political reasons are still being charged with felonies, Adams deserves the same treatment. This looks very much like an attempt to downplay his actions because of his politics.
In any case, that’s not the only vandalism spree happening. An 83-year-old in Long Island has been accused of keying five Teslas in a mall parking lot. He’s now denying the allegations (which were caught on video) but not the possible motive.
Victor Divergilio, 83, caused $23,000 in damage to the cars at the Roosevelt Field Mall in Garden City on Sunday afternoon and allegedly fumed to detectives that Tesla CEO Musk “should die” and “so should Trump f–king die,” according to a criminal complaint…
Divergilio allegedly used a key to carve up the five Teslas around 1:50 p.m. but denied doing it when police showed him footage that appeared to show him scratching the vehicles, the complaint said.
“Yeah, that’s me but I wasn’t keying any cars,” he said, according to the complaint.
He should probably move to Minnesota where I’m sure Mary Moriarty would give him a pass. There was also some vandalism of a Tesla dealership in Manhattan earlier this week.
BREAKING: Climate Activists TAG windows of Tesla Showroom in Manhattan on #EarthDay
Extinction Rebellion tagged “F Off DOGE” and “WE DO NOT CONSENT” among other writings on the windows. pic.twitter.com/XMHBYnBxwY
— Oliya Scootercaster 🛴 (@ScooterCasterNY) April 22, 2025
Again, there’s no mystery about the political motive here:
The two climate vandals were arrested when police arrived on the scene. The younger man was wearing a pink t-shirt with the words “Climate Change = Mass Murder” inscribed on the back of his top.
Asked why he was being arrested, the man said: “Because people do not consent to unelected fascists and this is Earth Day.”
The group’s New York City chapter boasted about the defacing of the building on X.
A suspect in another vandalism case in Washington, DC won’t be as lucky as the one in Minneapolis.
Court documents say Justin Fisher, 49, is charged with four counts of defacing public or private property for four instances of Tesla vandalism occurring between March 1 and March 21 in Northeast D.C.
A man in New Haven is also facing charges.
City police have charged a Gateway Community College employee with vandalizing a Tesla in March…
Cameras on the car captured images of the suspect, later identified as 40-year-old Conor Perreault, of New Haven. Police said Perreault was employed by the community college without specifying his role.
His alleged vandalism did less than $2,000 of damage so he’s facing a misdemeanor.
These are just individual incidents but there’s some evidence this trend is very widespread. An insurance agency called Guardian Service surveyed Tesla owners and a surprisingly large percentage of them had experienced vandalism or had negative experiences with other drivers on the road.
The insurance agency’s study was conducted in April 2025. As per Guardian Service, the study was aimed at determining how vandalism and targeted hostility, among other factors, are reshaping the EV ownership experience in the United States.
A total of 508 Tesla owners participated in the study…
Reports of intentional damage were widespread among the study’s respondents, with 44% of the study’s participants stating that their vehicle had been keyed, slashed, or otherwise vandalized. Average repair costs for vehicles that experienced intentional damage were almost $1,900.
A total of 43% of the study’s respondents also stated that they had received rude gestures and negative comments from strangers while they were driving their Teslas.
There’s no way of knowing how representative this is of millions of Tesla owners nationwide, but it does at least suggest this isn’t limited to a few fringe cases. Simply put, there are a lot of angry nuts out there looking to express their political convictions by damaging someone else’s property.
