SAN ANTONIO — San Antonio police are investigating claims of sexual assault at a local tattoo shop. The alleged victim is 18-years-old and she is speaking out.
KENS 5 is protecting her identity due to the sensitive nature of the case. The accused is also not being named because he has not been charged with any crime.
“I’ve been struggling a lot with all of this going on,” the woman said.
On December 9, she said she met up with the artist for the first time after he offered her part-time work at Tattoo Monkey on the southwest side. In exchange for her work that day, she said he offered her a free tattoo.
“He’s from what I know, pretty popular in San Antonio for tattooing,” she said.
She said he seemed nice but as he started to place the stencil onto the back of her leg, she said that is when things took a turn.
"Right then and there, he starts to get a little touchy,” she said.
She said she thought at first, he did not mean to touch her inappropriately but quickly the situation escalated. She claimed as he was tattooing her, he was also sexually assaulting her. She said it lasted for hours.
"I'm 18, I'm young, I didn't know what to do in that situation,” she said. “Before all of this, he was preaching about how he's been to prison so I was scared."
In that moment, she said she could not find the courage to get up and leave.
"I didn't know what he was going to do, so I just laid there, put on music and just waited for it to be over,” she said.
She said he eventually left to go get food and told her to clean up shop. That is when she said she finally left. The next morning, she decided to post about the situation on a Facebook group to warn other women.
"My DMs (direct messages) started flooding from girls who said 'Oh he's done this to me too,' this isn't the first time,” she said.
She said she realized at that point she needed to go to the police and file a police report. When she arrived, the investigator had her go to the hospital for a SANE (Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner) exam.
She said the shop has a surveillance camera so she is hoping it has some sort of evidence investigators can use but she recalls the artist placing a privacy screen to block the camera’s view of him tattooing her.
“Looking back on it, he put that there instead of putting it in front of the glass windows or doors,” she said. “So looking back, I could tell he was planning on it basically.”
Meanwhile, the owner of Tattoo Monkey posted online addressing the allegations and stating that the worker had been fired.
"Immediately, he was let go,” the owner who wanted to remain anonymous told KENS 5.
The owner said the artist had only been working for him for less than six months. He said he had not receive any complaints until now. He added, he is willing to do what he can to help the woman and investigators.
“If in fact these allegations are true, I believe they're a danger to the public,” he said.
The victim said she spoke with a detective on Sunday and was told to remain patient. However, she said she feels as if she is the voice for all the woman who claim they are victims, too.
“I'm glad I spoke up and I did something about it,” she said.
If you or someone you know is a victim of sexual assault, you can call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at (800) 656-HOPE (4673) or click here for more resources.