Booze and cocaine party leads to tattooing of teen

[Louis Cypher]

November 14, 2003

By DAVE HANEY
of the Journal Star

PEORIA - A 22-year-old man faces criminal charges after a 15-year-old Metamora girl was repeatedly tattooed during a bizarre party involving alcohol and drugs.

The teenager, who reportedly told people at the party she was 18, had several tattoos applied to her stomach, back and buttocks, including the names of other partygoers.

The tattooist, Matthew Campbell of 1016 E. Marietta Avenue, Peoria Heights, was booked last week on charges of tattooing the body of a minor.

"He thought it was funny," Detective Troy Burns said this week.

The teen told police she remembers

asking for the first two tattoos - the initials of a Chicago street gang tattooed to her belly and the first name of a dead punk rocker tattooed to her back - but after drinking and doing drugs, she didn't remember agreeing to have the names of five people at the party tattooed on her buttocks.

Campbell's arrest came after the girl's father reported the tattooing to Peoria police, who turned the case over to county detectives after learning the South Peoria house where the party took place was just outside city limits.

The owner of the house, Brandon Baum, 22, of 723 Pleasant St., told police he had met the girl only once before his party on Nov. 4, but both times she was accompanied by an acquaintance of his, 23-year-old John Haley of Chicago.

Baum told police everyone at the party had been drinking booze for several hours - others, police said, were using cocaine - when he, Haley and the girl got on the subject of tattoos. The teen girl then said she wanted one and was willing to pay $20.

Baum knew Campbell and called him. Within an hour, he arrived at the party with a tattoo gun and ink.

Campbell drew up a design of the letters "CMS," representing the Chi Town Mafia Skinheads, a Chicago street gang, and the teen girl agreed to having the tattoo applied.

After Campbell was done, the teen told him she wanted another one, police reports said. The girl asked to have "SID" tattooed on the small of her back, referring to Sid Vicious, a member of the punk rock band "The Sex Pistols" who died two decades ago.

"She seemed to be having a good time with it," Baum told detectives.

But instead of "SID," Campbell tattooed "STD," an acronym for sexually transmitted diseases. Campbell changed the tattoo, but only after the girl and everyone else at the party went to Downtown Peoria, where those who saw it laughed.

When the group returned to Baum's home, he said everything "got out of hand" because of the level of intoxication. That's when Campbell asked the high school girl if he could tattoo everyone's name on her, police said.

The names Johnny, Brandon Michael, Scrappy and Matthew, along with a swastika, were tattooed on her left buttock. After much insistence from another girl at the party, "I love Heather" was tattooed on her right buttock, along with the word "skinhead."

The next day, she admitted to Haley she is just 15 years old, police reports said. Apparently, the girl's mother had called Haley on his cell phone and made her daughter's age clear. The high schooler was taken to the mall to meet with her mom.

The girl admitted to police she initiated the first two tattoos but was too intoxicated to remember the others.

"If anyone is at fault, it should be me for allowing me to do this to myself," she told police. "I don't want to get anyone in trouble for my mistakes. This whole thing is my fault, I keep trying to tell my father that."

Campbell could not be reached for comment Thursday. He was booked into Peoria County Jail on a charge of tattooing the body of a minor and was released a few hours later after posting $100 bail.

He is expected to appear in court on Dec. 9. on the charge, a misdemeanor punishable by up to 30 days in jail, 18 months probation and a $75 fine.

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