A Tacoma tattoo artist who has been topic of years of neighborhood activism over his white supremacist associations has been indicted in a 2018 racist assault in a Lynnwood bar.
Jason “Gravy” DeSimas was indicted earlier this month for federal hate crimes and making false statements in reference to the Dec. 8, 2018, assault during which he and three different males allegedly kicked and punched a Black DJ and made derogatory racial feedback.
If convicted, DeSimas faces as much as 15 years in jail.
DeSimas, 46, was running a tattoo parlor on East 72nd street on the time of the assault in 2018. His associations and social media postings expressing help for white supremacist teams caught the eye of native civil justice activists.
The ensuing group, Tacoma Towards Nazis, held protests outdoors the tattoo parlor. They eventually rented a nearby billboard with the message, “There are Nazis in our neighborhood.”
DeSimas surrendered to federal authorities and should stay jailed pending trial, U.S. District Court docket Decide Paula McCandlis dominated, according to a story within the Everett Herald.
Three different males have been indicted within the 2018 assault that injured two different individuals who tried to intervene on the Lynnwood bar.
DeSimas and the opposite males have been on their approach to a white supremacist “Martyr’s Day” occasion once they stopped on the bar, in accordance with the federal Division of Justice. The occasion was to honor Robert Jay Mathews, a neo-Nazi activist and white supremacist militant who was killed in a 1984 shootout with federal regulation enforcement brokers on Whidbey Island.
The indictment alleges DeSimas falsely claimed that neither he nor anybody else used a racial slur in the course of the assault.
The hate crime prices in opposition to DeSimas and Jason Stanley, 45, of Boise, Idaho; Randy Smith, 40, of Eugene, Oregon; and Daniel Delbert Dorson, 26, of Corvallis, Oregon, carry a most penalty of 10 years in jail. The false statements cost carries a most penalty of 5 years.
In accordance with the charging paperwork, on Dec. 5, 2019, DeSimas advised an FBI agent that neither he nor anybody else had used a racial slur in opposition to the sufferer in the course of the assault.
“In reality and in reality, as Jason DeSimas then effectively knew, his statements to the FBI Particular Agent have been false, in that Jason DeSimas and others referred to as (the sufferer) a ‘n—er’,” the charging papers state.
On a video recording of the assault, DeSimas is seen putting the victims. Two of the victims mentioned their assailant had a satan tattoo. DeSimas has a satan tattoo.
DeSimas has a legal file that features housebreaking, assault, illegal possession of heroin, ID theft, forgery and different crimes starting from Tacoma to Las Vegas.
When questioned by Information Tribune reporters in 2018, DeSimas denied that he was racist. “I’m not a Nazi,” he mentioned on the time.
Earlier in 2018, the web site for Puget Sound Anarchists posted a narrative alleging that DeSimas and associates of his tattoo store have been members of the Northwest Hammerskins.
The Southern Poverty Regulation Heart, a corporation that tracks hate teams and hate crimes, lists the Hammerskins as a “Racist Skinhead” hate group.
Though DeSimas surrendered, regulation enforcement spent “appreciable time” in search of him at his present tattoo store within the 8200 block of Pacific Avenue in Tacoma and at different places, in accordance with a movement in help of detention.
DeSimas and his companions closed the enterprise on East 72nd Road, Tac City Tattoo, in mid-2019, in accordance with Tacoma Towards Nazis member John Murphy. DeSimas then opened one other tattoo enterprise on Pacific Avenue, Home of Ache. It subsequently modified its identify to Tac City Tattoo.
The enterprise remains to be in existence and had photographs of DeSimas on its Fb web page Tuesday.
Tacoma Towards Nazis final held a protest outdoors Tac City Tattoo’s new location in summer season 2019, Murphy mentioned.
DeSimas’ arrest validated the group’s work and the criticism it took for it, Murphy mentioned, however he feels unhealthy for the victims.
“That is precisely what we have now been been attempting to inform you what’s going to occur,” Murphy mentioned. “And it’s vindicating, however with form of a bitter style on the again finish, simply due to the victims concerned.”
Craig Sailor has labored for The Information Tribune since 1998 as a author, editor and photographer. He beforehand labored at The Olympian and at different newspapers in Nevada and California. He has a level in journalism from San Jose State College.
