Customers, apprentices accuse tattoo business owner of sexual assault, violating health codes

PEORIA (25News Now) – A Peoria tattoo artist is facing allegations including sexual assault of an underage girl, inappropriate behavior towards employees, and unsanitary working conditions at his studio, InkCapital. Years later, several victims are now speaking out against him.

Chillicothe resident McKenna Vinson was 15 years old in 2016 when she wanted to get her first tattoo. She said she had friends around her age at the time who had received tattoos from artist Mario Davis (Court documents show other names he goes by include Havier M. Davis, Javier Davis, and Rio Davis). They told Vinson that Davis was willing to give tattoos to girls under 18 years old without parental permission. Davis was 25 at the time.

The Illinois Department of Public Health’s Body Art Code says the following in Part K of Section 797.400:

Sources say Davis operated a studio out of his home on McClure Avenue in Peoria. Reaching out to schedule an appointment over text message, Vinson said Davis brought up wanting to do ‘sexual things’ in the virtual conversation beforehand. She said she tried to ignore his advances. The day of the appointment, she went to Davis’ house to get the work done around mid-afternoon alone.

After finishing her tattoo, Vinson said Davis began to incessantly ask her if she would stay to have drinks and dinner with him while she waited for a friend to pick her up. She rejected his offer multiple times. That lead Davis, who Vinson claims was intoxicated, to become physical towards her.

“He raped me,” she said. “The only way that I actually got out of it was I told him I had to go to the bathroom, and if he didn’t stop, I would have urinated right there.”

After freeing herself from Davis, Vinson said she waited in a locked bathroom in an upper level of the house until her friend arrived, after which she ran downstairs and out the door to escape.

Vinson said she and her mother reported the incident to the Peoria Police Department that June. According to a redacted version of a police report on the matter verified to be Vinson’s through court records, officers spoke with both her and Davis over the course of an investigation lasting three months. Davis told officers he knew Vinson was underage at the time, but thought she had her parents’ permission to receive a tattoo. He also denied accusations of sexual assault.

The report says officers dropped the assault claim after messages between the two were reviewed, and investigators found “nothing accusing him (Davis) of touching her (Vinson) or attempting to rape her.” Davis was arrested on the single charge of tattooing a minor, to which he plead guilty in Peoria County Court on January 12, 2017, and paid a fine of $482. It’s the only charge related to underage tattooing on his criminal record in Peoria County.

Vinson said the aftermath of the assault was an invalidating experience. She believes police wrote off her rape claims because of her age.

“They decided that based off of the conversation that we had, that they felt that it wasn’t good enough evidence in order to charge him with it, which doesn’t make sense to me,” she said.

Despite her openness about her experience with Davis, she said friends continued to allow him to work on them, because they considered Davis a talented artist. Vinson said she repeatedly expressed confusion to others as to why they wouldn’t go to other artists for tattoos, knowing what she told them.

“They basically just laughed in my face and said that I was lying,” she said.

Vinson said her experience was not unique. Since 2016, she recounted that she’s spoken to dozens of other former customers that also allege Davis committed criminal acts, including stories of him drinking or getting high while he was doing work, or making them uncomfortable.

“A lot of the time people don’t say anything, especially if they’re alone because they don’t want to upset him or cause a situation in which they’re putting themselves in danger.”

Contact with Davis didn’t end for Vinson. Several years ago, she said she received a Snapchat friend request from a profile that looked like it belonged to another local tattoo artist. After accepting the request, the user asked if she had any interest in getting a tattoo done. In exchange for the work, however, the account owner told her she had to send inappropriate pictures or provide sexual favors. Vinson said she reached out to the wife of the artist whose name was on the Snapchat profile via Facebook. The wife of the other artist informed Vinson that Davis was creating fake profiles to try and solicit from unsuspecting women the same things he asked from Vinson.

Over the past several weeks, posts on Facebook working to draw attention to Davis have gained traction, with many publicly making allegations against him in extensive comments sections. Some users shared testimonies of similar experiences of Davis trying to solicit sex when they were underage.

Private message conversations obtained by 25News reveal other overlapping details, including additional claims of unsolicited sexual advances and not finishing work after those advances were rejected. Multiple claims from others state they also went to him while underage for a tattoo, saying he made them feel uncomfortable while he worked on them.

In response to the social media outcry, Vinson said the allegations are an even bigger deal now with the sudden surge of transparency. Even close to a decade since she said the assault happened, and not feeling heard despite her best efforts, Vinson expressed relief that the issue is gaining more exposure.

“Unfortunately, it should have been back then,” Vinson said.

According to state records, it appears Davis tried multiple entrepreneurial ventures since running a tattoo operation out of his home. Business records from the Illinois Secretary of State’s Office show the name ‘Mario E. Davis’ is registered under seven different LLCs across Central Illinois.

Three of them have variations on the name ‘InkCapital,’ two of which have the status of ‘involuntary dissolution’ and one with an NGS — ‘not in good standing’ — status. LLCs named ‘Trendcorp Technologies’ and ‘Rio’s Tattoo Bar & Grill’ were dissolved in 2022, and one titled ‘Davis Realty’ was dissolved in 2023. The only active LLC is ‘Black Ink Supply,’ registered to the same currently listed address for InkCapital Tattoos in Peoria.

A co-owner of a Central Illinois tattoo studio, who wishes to remain anonymous, has worked to make public the allegations against Davis. The co-owner rejected a potential business partnership with him, and they haven’t had contact since. That co-owner said many clients who come into their shop as far back as 2017 share their own negative interactions with Davis.

“I had numerous women telling us about their experience at Mario Davis’ shop, and how he would try to use tattoos for sex. That escalated to other women coming forward.”

The co-owner’s efforts went outside of their profession. After going to the East Peoria Police Department to file a complaint, officers told the co-owner they were not able to file an official report about the allegations since they were an advocate, not an actual victim of the alleged offenses. The co-owner then proceeded to encourage other customers who shared their allegations with them privately to inform the police on their own terms. In one case, a woman had her complaint transferred several times between different police departments before becoming fatigued by the process. When they didn’t feel law enforcement was doing enough, the co-owner tried to take their complaints to health officials.

The Peoria City/County Health Department provided 25News the following statement:

“The Illinois Department of Public Health is the regulatory agency for tattoo establishments. Questions or complaints can be directed to the IDPH Division of Environmental Health.”

Because of this, the co-owner had to file complaints directly to the Illinois Department of Public Health. The co-owner claimed IDPH also didn’t respond after multiple attempts to contact the agency. They said at least 20 people they know of have written complaints about Davis to the state health department, with similar results. In 2022 alone, they said they referred 58 people to the health department. After continued follow-ups, the last the co-owner heard from IDPH was that an investigation was underway, but no details were provided.

For the co-owner, Central Illinois’ tattoo culture is also at stake because of Davis’ alleged offenses. Creating a positive environment for their customers is a business priority, they say, due to the very personal and permanent nature of their work. It’s a wrong InkCapital customers come to the co-owner’s shop to make right.

“They immediately wanted his artwork off of them because it reminded them of the horrible experience that they had,” the co-owner said. “It was like they could forget about everything that happened. They don’t have to be reminded every day of that ugly scar.”

Allegations of illicit behavior also come from inside InkCapital itself. Alice Simkins is a former apprentice, working under Davis between April and October of 2018 at the age of 18 when his business was registered to the Sunnyland area of Washington.

An aspiring tattoo artist herself, Simkins first met Davis to get a tattoo to honor her father who had just died by suicide. A day after finishing the work, Davis reached out to Simkins over Facebook Messenger asking if she would work for him, an offer she took immediately.

“I really thought that this was going to be the start of my career,” she said. “This is all I’ve wanted to do as a as a child, and it landed right in my lap, and it got ripped away faster than it landed there. I mean it’s messed me up a little bit. It hurts.”

According to Simkins, inappropriate behavior from Davis began before she even started her apprenticeship. In tattooing, many shops require an apprentice to pay a fee. Instead of a monetary payment for her time, however, Simkins said Davis asked for sexual favors.

“This was the guy who was telling me that he was going to make all of my tattoo dreams come true,” she said. Simkins paid in cash anyway.

She added inappropriate sexual behavior continued, like how on some occasions, Davis would ask for her to join him in the back room to touch her in inappropriate ways. These actions included lifting up articles of clothing and groping her. Simkins said Davis put her chair next to his, sending her explicit messages with requests while they were sharing the space, messages that included requests to stay after her last appointment in the shop to drink alcohol with him. All of this, said Simkins, was happening without her consent.

Simkins said that during her time as an apprentice, employees were encouraged to drink heavily, as were Davis’ customers. He allegedly would take employees to a nearby bar and provide them with alcohol he purchased, even though Simkins was 18 at the time. Employees would return to work after, and Davis would provide large cups to fill with alcohol on hand in the studio for both staff and clients. Simkins said because of this, mistakes were made on the part of the artists, and those receiving the tattoos were put at risk due to thinner blood, which leaves them vulnerable to excessive bleeding.

“We all drink like fishes, and that’s all that they wanted to do,” she said.

McKenna Vinson also said she saw employees at the studio drinking alcohol while working. This was during a visit to InkCapital to get a tattoo by another apprentice on a day that Davis was reportedly gone.

IDPH outlines the official policy of alcohol consumption in tattoo studios in Part C of Section 797.400: Operational Requirements of its Body Art Code:

The shop was often heavily secured during Simkins’ time as an apprentice, with the door locked most of the time and only opened when customers needed to enter. In some instances, she and other apprentices would show up to work to find a locked door with no way to enter, and no word from Davis.

The job at the tattoo shop was Simkins’ only position of employment at the time. She estimates her salary was $100 a month. Tips were the most she would get for the day’s work, often a fraction of the cost of the actual service.

“Everything else went into Mario’s pocket,“ she said. “We never saw it ever again.”

After just six months on the job, Simkins and another apprentice left InkCapital and went to local police departments to report their experiences. She said they were turned away, and were told law enforcement didn’t have enough information to take action at the time. Simkins said she still hasn’t heard word of any investigations, even after convincing other women to come forward.

“Everybody told me that he was a snake in the grass, like he was just waiting to grab what he wants, and then tuck back into his little hole,” she said.

Devin Mangum is another former apprentice who worked at InkCapital for one month in the spring of 2023 at its current Peoria location. He moved back to Central Illinois around 2020, intent on starting his own tattooing career and looking for a mentor. He heard rumors about Davis at InkCapital, who Mangum said had a reputation of being “sketchy.”

After apprenticing at two other shops in the area, Mangum decided to reach out to Davis about working at InkCapital, since it was geographically closer to his Chillicothe home.

The first thing Mangum claimed he noticed was the lack of sanitation standards at the studio, including conditions that in his view could put customers at risk of infection. For many apprentices that Mangum met, this was their first experience in the industry, but were never taught proper cleaning techniques.

“There aren’t any sharps containers,” Mangum said, referring to the receptacles used to dispose of needles used in tattooing procedures. “Two of the tattoo artists’ machines weren’t properly sanitized, they still had bloodborne pathogens, black ink still sat inside of the wheel well.”

IDPH outlines the official policy of proper equipment disposal in Part I of Section 797.400: Operational Requirements of its Body Art Code:

Beyond cleaning, Mangum said the training he witnessed consisted of “lots of information in a short amount of time,” when basics were not fully conveyed from the beginning. But Mangum’s efforts to share his knowledge with other apprentices to correct what he saw were met with backlash.

“Anytime I try to improve or help out with the apprentices,” he said, “Mario will be right there trying to counteract what I said.”

When asked if he had seen anything related to misconduct, Mangum cited several alleged examples regarding another InkCapital apprentice in particular. In one such instance, Mangum’s client went into the back of the shop to change after getting work done. A fellow apprentice approached her while she did so.

“He asked her, ‘Can I see your breast?’ I gave him a look like, ‘Dude, that’s being unprofessional,’ to where he backed [away].”

Mangum said this client contacted him after the incident, saying the same apprentice made advances on repeated occasions when she returned to InkCapital. In another instance, Mangum alleged he found wrapped condoms in the same apprentice’s toolbox. He said he tried to bring his findings to Davis’ attention.

“I kind of looked at Mario and was like, ‘Oh, what was this?’ He kind of just brushed it off,” Mangum said. “So, I’m just abruptly like, yeah, I’ve got to get out of here, because you guys aren’t being factual about what’s going on.”

25News asked Mangum if he was ever aware of underage customers receiving tattoos at the studio. According to him, customers were asked to scan a QR code at the front of the shop that would take them to an online form. While capturing footage for this story, we scanned the QR code ourselves through the front window of the business.

The online form asks about a history of diseases and other medical conditions. At the bottom of the form, customers are asked to submit a copy of a ‘government issued ID,’ along with another field verifying the customer confirms they are 18 years old or older. But Mangum said he never noticed anyone check any IDs in person, a contrast to the two shops he apprenticed at before his time at InkCapital. He admitted there’s a chance he tattooed minors without knowing.

“I don’t blame the apprentices,” said Mangum. “I blame the mentor that’s teaching them these methods.”

Part K in Section 797.400: Operational Requirements in IDPH’s Body Art Code states:

Davis’ alleged behavior is stigmatizing the culture of local tattooing, the anonymous studio co-owner said. Not only does it put male tattoo artists in a bad light, but it could spoil future business opportunities for both local artists and customers.

“He’s ruining it for a lot of people. If that were my first tattoo, and I got one done by him, I would be traumatized,” they said. “I would never step foot into another tattoo shop again.”

25News reached out to InkCapital to request a comment from Mario Davis on these allegations April 23. He called us back, saying he’s currently living in Texas, but would be willing to do a virtual interview for this story. After confirming and setting up a meeting on a Zoom call, we waited an hour and a half for him to log on, but Davis never appeared.

The next day, on April 24, we received a communication from the Peoria Heights law office of Phillips and Bathke, P.C. with the following statement:

We asked the attorney cited in the letter over the phone if he would grant us an on-camera interview, either with himself or Davis, or if there were any other comments outside of what was provided in the communication. We were repeatedly redirected to the statement in response during the call.

We have filed Freedom of Information Act requests with all law enforcement entities mentioned by our sources regarding any reports relevant to Davis and/or InkCapital. The Bartonville and Washington Police departments responded saying they have nothing on their records. The East Peoria Police Department denied our request, saying it “includes information that can uniquely identify a person, which is ‘private information’ as defined by Section 2(c-5) of the (Freedom of Information) Act.” We received one report from the Peoria Police Department, verified to be McKenna Vinson’s. We also asked if there were any open investigations into Mario Davis and/or InkCapital, and were told there were none. We followed up nearly two weeks later, and received this response:

“This is currently an open investigation. No one from the Peoria Police Department is commenting on this case at this time.”

Peoria Police could not confirm if there are other agencies assisting with said investigation. When we asked Illinois State Police, they told us they are not involved. The FBI sent us this statement in response to the same inquiry:

“Per FBI policy we do not confirm or deny the existence of an investigation. When an investigation does exist, court documents will eventually become a matter of public record.”

25News received a statement back from the Illinois Department of Public Health on April 25 with the following response about InkCapital:

“The company’s license expired in 2022. Since that time, we had received no complaints about them. Upon learning that they may still be in operation, an inspector checked and found the business had opened in a new location but had not obtained the required license. The inspector has given the business a month to come into compliance. Should the business not come into compliance with state law within the next month, the Department would pursue legal options to have the business closed.

As a general rule, consumers seeking tattoo services should check that the business has a current state registration, which should be hanging up in plain view. Consumers who have questions or complaints about tattoo services can contact dph.bodyart@illinois.gov.”

We also received a FOIA request returned for all complaints and inspections filed for InkCapital from IDPH. One complaint was returned, filed in 2021 by the same anonymous shop co-owner we spoke with, and is linked to the inspection mentioned in the above release. According to the documents, an inspection was conducted on April 22. Among the corrective actions, the inspector noted the studio did not have a current body art permit, some artists do not have current bloodborne pathogen training, and stations do not have sharps containers. Mario Davis was interviewed for the report, and InkCapital now has until May 24 to comply.

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