State: Tattoo evidence building
Toolbox
By Brent Curtis Herald Staff - Published: October 30, 2007
WEST RUTLAND — State prosecutors will decide soon whether to charge a local couple who allegedly operated an unlicensed tattoo business that contributed to a recent outbreak of bacterial infections.
Christopher Winters, director of the State Office of Professional Regulation, said agents from his office returned to town on Monday following leads and conducting interviews on the final day of an investigation into a tattoo business operated by Michael and Tiffany Mills. Winters said the investigation would be turned over to prosecutors in his office by the end of day Monday.
Last week, OPR investigators hauled off a sizeable cache of tattoo-making equipment from the Mills’ home at 23 Proctor St.
An inventory of evidence seized during a search of the house included needles, sterile patches, a tattoo gun, tattoo goo — applied to tattoos as an after-care — and other tattooing paraphernalia.
Michael Mills, 30, and Tiffany Mills, 27, have not been charged or cited by state officials or the local law enforcement.
However, Winters said the pair could be subjected to civil or criminal charges at the prosecutors’ discretion. The maximum penalty they could face would be a $5,000 fine and one year in jail.
The Mills’ operation was discovered after three of their clients sought medical care for bacterial infections on the tattoos they had received. Two were treated and released quickly from Rutland Regional Medical Center. The third was hospitalized for two weeks and, according to an affidavit filed in Rutland District Court by state investigators, may have been in danger of losing his life when the infection spread to his heart.
The infection that all three suffered from is known as methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus — or MRSA — an antibiotic resistant version of the more treatable staph bacteria.
In the affidavit filed in Rutland District Court, OPR Detective Amy Carlson said that the Mills charged a woman who would later contract MRSA $40 for three tattoos that both Michael and Tiffany Mills allegedly worked on. Another customer who would later develop an infection guided new clients to the couple in exchange for free tattoos, Carlson wrote.
Winters said he didn’t know how large of a clientele the couple might have had before they were put out of business.
Carlson’s affidavit indicates they were planning to do a lot of business.
Three weeks before state officials searched the Mills’ home, Rutland County Sheriff’s deputies executed their own search of the home. The deputies were looking for crack cocaine — not tattoo equipment — and they found what they were looking for.
In the bust, police seized $1,700 in cash and roughly 16 grams of crack cocaine with a street value of more than $5,000.
Donna L. “Mommy D” Mercer, 48, and her daughter, Sarah Mercer, 18, were charged with crack cocaine possession and conspiracy to distribute the drug.
The Mills, who told police that they were only renting space to the Mercers temporarily, were not charged.
However, signs of the tattoo operation were abundantly clear during the drug raid, Carlson wrote. She quoted Rutland County Deputy Sheriff Jeff Stephenson as saying there was “box after box after box of tattoo supplies” in the home.
Winter said Monday that his office didn’t learn about the Sheriff’s Department’s search of the home until after Rutland Regional Medical Center officials alerted them to the MRSA outbreak.
Winter said his office could have started its investigation sooner if the Sheriff’s Department had contacted them. But he said most law enforcement agencies aren’t familiar with the regulations his office enforces and he said it would have been difficult for his agents to obtain a search warrant until it had more concrete proof that tattoos were actually being made in the Mills’ home.
“It certainly would have raised a red flag and we would have looked into it, but it would be hard to prove anything without corroborating evidence from someone who had received a tattoo there,” he said.
Contact Brent Curtis at brent.curtis@rutlandherald.com.
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