MOORHEAD, Minn. – A Moorhead man is accused of illegally tattooing 14-year-old girls and then posting photos of the tattoos on their private parts on Facebook as advertisements.
Court documents filed Friday in Clay County District Court with the criminal charges against Ralph “Monster” Curiel, 35, state the case came to the attention of police in October 2012, but that Curiel appeared to have been tattooing children as recently as last February.
The case first emerged thanks to a mother in Moorhead who told police in October 2012 she discovered her then-14-year-old daughter had tattoos of an infinity symbol with the word “love” on the back of her neck and a star behind her ear.
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The girl identified the tattoo artist as a man named “Monster” who worked out of his apartment in Moorhead, the mother told police.
When police raided Curiel’s apartment – seizing computers, cameras and a spray bottle with soapy water – Curiel told them another man had performed the tattoos, documents state.
He then admitted he tattooed the girl believing she was 17, and moved his tattoo equipment to another apartment because he didn’t want to lose it to police.
Word had spread to students at Fargo South through work he posted on Facebook, Curiel told police. Through this, Curiel said, he worked on another 14-year-old girl who told him her mother gave her permission to get inked. A shot of the tattoo he did on that girl’s side was on another Facebook post, he told police.
Curiel told police he charged anywhere from $20 to $75 per tattoo. Sometimes they weren’t images, but mottoes stating “Live the life you love, love the life you live.” In one case, it was a dreamcatcher on another 14-year-old girl’s buttock.
Curiel’s wife would help him by covering up parts of the girl’s bodies while he took before and after shots of their private areas and breasts, he told police.
Another mother called the police this Jan. 25 from the Sanford Emergency Room to say she got a call from her runaway daughter, 17, telling the mother she was on her way home after getting a tattoo.
The mother first encountered Curiel 12 days earlier when she, her daughter and her daughter’s 15-year-old friend went to him to get “mother-daughter tattoos,” she told police. Curiel told police he believed the 17-year-old girl had her mother’s permission for the second tattoo.
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The 15-year-old at first denied getting a tattoo from Curiel, but police found a photo of Curiel sitting between the girl’s legs, allegedly applying a tattoo that referenced the girl’s grandmother.
The 17-year-old identified the tattoo artist as Curiel, who also went by the nickname “Buddha,” court documents state.
In February, a Moorhead Ellen Hopkins Elementary School employee reported to police that “Monster” was again tattooing teenagers, in this case a 15-year-old and her boyfriend.
Court documents identify more than a dozen juveniles Curiel is accused of tattooing without a license.
Curiel was charged in Clay County District Court with three counts of failing to obtain a tattoo technician’s license and three counts of failing to obtain a body piercing technician’s license, all of which are gross misdemeanors.
He was also charged with 12 counts of tattooing a minor, a misdemeanor.
He is next due in court Oct. 24.
