Tacoma tattoo artist with alleged white supremacist ties indicted in federal hate crime
A Tacoma tattoo artist who has been subject of years of community 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 connection with the Dec. 8, 2018, attack in which he and three other men allegedly kicked and punched a Black DJ and made derogatory racial comments.
If convicted, DeSimas faces up to 15 years in prison.
DeSimas, 46, was running a tattoo parlor on East 72nd street at the time of the attack in 2018. His associations and social media postings expressing support for white supremacist groups caught the attention of local civil justice activists.
The resulting group, Tacoma Against Nazis, held protests outside the tattoo parlor. They eventually rented a nearby billboard with the message, “There are Nazis in our neighborhood.”
DeSimas surrendered to federal authorities and must remain jailed pending trial, U.S. District Court Judge Paula McCandlis ruled, according to a story in the Everett Herald.
Three other men have been indicted in the 2018 attack that injured two other people who tried to intervene at the Lynnwood bar.
DeSimas and the other men were on their way to a white supremacist “Martyr’s Day” event when they stopped at the bar, according to the federal Department of Justice. The event was to honor Robert Jay Mathews, a neo-Nazi activist and white supremacist militant who was killed in a 1984 shootout with federal law enforcement agents on Whidbey Island.
The indictment alleges DeSimas falsely claimed that neither he nor anyone else used a racial slur during the assault.
The hate crime charges against DeSimas and Jason Stanley, 45, of Boise, Idaho; Randy Smith, 40, of Eugene, Oregon; and Daniel Delbert Dorson, 26, of Corvallis, Oregon, carry a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. The false statements charge carries a maximum penalty of five years.
According to the charging documents, on Dec. 5, 2019, DeSimas told an FBI agent that neither he nor anyone else had used a racial slur against the victim during the attack.
“In truth and in fact, as Jason DeSimas then well knew, his statements to the FBI Special Agent were false, in that Jason DeSimas and others called (the victim) a ‘n---er’,” the charging papers state.
On a video recording of the assault, DeSimas is seen striking the victims. Two of the victims said their assailant had a devil tattoo. DeSimas has a devil tattoo.
DeSimas has a criminal record that includes burglary, assault, unlawful possession of heroin, ID theft, forgery and other crimes ranging from Tacoma to Las Vegas.
When questioned by News Tribune reporters in 2018, DeSimas denied that he was racist. “I’m not a Nazi,” he said at the time.
Earlier in 2018, the website for Puget Sound Anarchists posted a story alleging that DeSimas and associates of his tattoo shop were members of the Northwest Hammerskins.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization that tracks hate groups and hate crimes, lists the Hammerskins as a “Racist Skinhead” hate group.
Although DeSimas surrendered, law enforcement spent “considerable time” looking for him at his current tattoo shop in the 8200 block of Pacific Avenue in Tacoma and at other locations, according to a motion in support of detention.
DeSimas and his partners closed the business on East 72nd Street, Tac Town Tattoo, in mid-2019, according to Tacoma Against Nazis member John Murphy. DeSimas then opened another tattoo business on Pacific Avenue, House of Pain. It subsequently changed its name to Tac Town Tattoo.
The business is still in existence and had photos of DeSimas on its Facebook page Tuesday.
Tacoma Against Nazis last held a protest outside Tac Town Tattoo’s new location in summer 2019, Murphy said.
DeSimas’ arrest validated the group’s work and the criticism it took for it, Murphy said, but he feels bad for the victims.
“This is exactly what we have been been trying to tell you what’s going to happen,” Murphy said. “And it’s vindicating, but with kind of a sour taste on the back end, just because of the victims involved.”
This story was originally published December 29, 2020 at 4:41 PM.
