Taxpayers Will Cover Cosmetics Bill for Skinhead’s Murder Trial
Do you like the makeup on John DiTullio’s face and neck? Hope so, because you may be paying for it. The skinhead, who goes on trial for murder today in Clearwater, Fla., will appear in court with special cosmetics covering his tattoos — including a swastika on his neck and green-tinted “scar” running from forehead to eyebrow — The New York Times reports.
Taxpayers will pick up the tab for the makeover after the court agreed with lawyer Bjorn Brunvand that the tattoos could prove “distracting or prejudicial” to jurors.
The Times reports this is Ditullio’s second trial for the murder; the first, “which also involved the services of a cosmetologist,” ended last year in a mistrial.
Chele – just Chele – the owner of the company performing the beauty treatments, will earn $125 a day; the process takes about 45 minutes, she told the Times. The cosmetologist asked the Times not to use her full name out of fear of reprisals; “we mostly do weddings,” she told the paper.
Another Florida makeup artist told a local ABC affiliate she would have simply refused the job. “As a citizen of the United States, I think I would have to say, ‘Wait a minute. He chose to do this. Why do you want to cover it up?” Clearwater-based Francee Weinfeld said. “If you’re so proud of who you are, what difference does it make?’”
DiTullio’s primping seems less extreme than Daniel Cowart’s; as the Forward reported in July, that 21-year-old white supremacist skinhead wanted his swastika tattoo surgically removed. Cowart didn’t get as lucky as DiTullio; U.S. Marshals refused his request.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
