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Florida 'artist' held in traffic fracas

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla., Jan. 5 (UPI) -- A Florida judge told a defendant this week she should keep what she calls performance art away from busy streets "and everything will start looking up for you."

Arlene Mena, 25, was brought before Broward County Judge John Hurley on battery and criminal mischief charges stemming from her performance in the middle of State Road A1A in Hallandale Beach, which ended with a broken car mirror and a noisy scuffle between Mena and two men.

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"I suggest not wearing boots and doing artwork in the middle of a roadway," Hurley told Mena. "I would start right there and everything will start looking up for you."

Things went downhill for Mena, a self-described stripper, Wednesday when she was spotted trying to direct traffic on A1A wearing a skimpy outfit and boots. Mena told the judge she had been "just trying to do some artwork" that was misunderstood.

A witness told the South Florida Sun Sentinel Mena threw a traffic cone at one car, breaking off a side mirror, and wound up wrestling with the driver and a pedestrian who tried to get her out of the street.

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"She looked like a very drunk person," witness Noel von Kaufmann told the newspaper.

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