Government Pays For White Supremacist’s “Extreme Makeover” Before Court Date

NOW YOU SEE THEM ... A Florida judge has agreed with a defense request to have John Ditullio’s tattoos covered up by a makeup artist so that they cannot influence the jury in his murder trial.

CLEARWATER, Fla. — When John Ditullio goes on trial on Monday, jurors will not see the large swastika tattooed on his neck. Or the crude insult tattooed on the other side of his neck. Or any of the other markings he has acquired since being jailed on charges related to a double stabbing that wounded a woman and killed a teenager in 2006.

Mr. Brunvand, who was appointed by the court, said inmates might tattoo themselves for many reasons: some may do so to project a more menacing appearance and to show affiliation with groups that might protect them.Mr. Ditullio’s lawyer successfully argued that the tattoos could be distracting or prejudicial to the jurors, who under the law are supposed to consider only the facts presented to them. The case shows some of the challenges lawyers face when trying to get clients ready for trial — whether that means hitting the consignment shop for decent clothes for an impoverished client or telling wealthy clients to leave the bling at home.

“It’s easier to give someone who looks like you a fair shake,” said Bjorn E. Brunvand, Mr. Ditullio’s lawyer.

The court approved the judicial equivalent of an extreme makeover, paying $125 a day for the services of a cosmetologist to cover up the tattoos that Mr. Ditullio has gotten since his arrest. This is Mr. Ditullio’s second trial for the murder; the first, which also involved the services of a cosmetologist, ended last year in a mistrial. If convicted, he could face the death penalty.

“There’s no doubt in my mind — without the makeup being used, there’s no way a jury could look at John and judge him fairly,” Mr. Brunvand said in an interview in his office here. “It’s too frightening when you see him with the tattoos. It’s a scary picture.”

Hence the cosmetologist. Chele, the owner of the company performing the work, said the process takes about 45 minutes

The first stage is a reddish layer to obscure the greenish tinge of the ink — “You cover a color with a color,” she explained. Then comes Dermablend, a cosmetic aid that smoothes and obscures and is used to cover scars and pigmentation disorders like vitiligo. A flesh-toned layer is then sprayed on with an air gun, and finally, to avoid the porcelain-doll look that comes from an even-hued coat, a final color touchup intended to, as theatrical makeup artists say, “put blood back in.”

The cosmetologist asked that she not be identified by her full name out of fear of reprisal and lost business. “We mostly do weddings,” she said.

Colleen Quinn-Adams, a private investigator working on the case with Mr. Brunvand, said she had had to call 10 cosmetologists before finding one willing to take on this particular client. “I would either get a long pause, and have to say, ‘Are you still there?’ or, ‘I don’t think we could handle that job.’ ”

While the move to pretty up a man accused of murder might seem bizarre, defense lawyers like Mr. Brunvand say they fight an uphill battle every day in court: though the law requires that juries see every defendant as innocent until proved guilty, they say, jurors are generally more likely to see someone who has been arrested as guilty.

Appearance is a big part of setting the right balance, said Anna M. Durbin, a lawyer in Ardmore, Pa., who has often run to used-clothing stores to find an alternative to the jail jumpsuit for clients without money or family. “You don’t have a clean slate if you look like a perpetrator,” she said.

Douglas Keene, a trial consultant in Austin, Tex., noted that making defendants look more like someone who is “kind of like me” does not come into play just in cases involving violence or poverty. “I counseled defendants during the Enron trial to remove $10,000 watches,” he said.

The decision to cover Mr. Ditullio’s tattoos could be more of a judgment call, Mr. Keene said. “People are wearing tattoos as a public statement of what’s important to them,” he said.

He recalled that Charles Manson carved a swastika on his forehead during his murder trial. “At what point does someone’s decision to put a billboard on their forehead become something from which we have to protect them?” he asked.

Charlene Bricken, the mother of the young man Mr. Ditullio is accused of killing, Kristofer King, said she was outraged that the defendant would receive a court-approved makeover. “Did somebody tie him down while he was in jail and put these tattoos on him?” she asked angrily.

Ms. Bricken said that she had “no doubt” Mr. Ditullio was guilty — he sent a taunting Christmas card to the family from prison — and that the judge was “bending over backwards for the criminal.”

Mr. Brunvand said the card Mr. Ditullio sent Ms. Bricken was “a terrible thing,” but attributed it to “acting out in frustration” because of feelings that he had been falsely arrested and that “everybody had, in their minds, already convicted him.”

He said he hoped to show that another member of a neo-Nazi group Mr. Ditullio had joined more closely resembled the initial description by the surviving victim of the attack and was the likely perpetrator. That person has left the state.

Mike Halkitis, the division director for the state attorney’s office in New Port Richey, where the trial will be held, said that he fought the “absurd” request for a cosmetic cover-up last year, and that taxpayers should not have to pay for it.

While a richer defendant could pay for cosmetics or even tattoo removal, “the indigent defendant isn’t entitled to the same defense an affluent defendant can get,” he said. “That’s case law.”

Instead, Mr. Halkitis said, the judge could just as easily instruct the jury to ignore the tattoos in their consideration of the case. “We believe the jurors listen to judges’ instructions,” he said.

Mr. Halkitis suggested that the judge had ruled to allow the cosmetic assistance with an eye to higher courts in the event that Mr. Ditullio receives the ultimate penalty — “that there can’t be a judge that overturns the death penalty on the basis that they should have whited the tattoos.”

For Chele, the cosmetologist, the case has been a lesson in the justice system. “It’s not about payment,” she said. “It’s about doing what’s right to do this — to give this man a chance at a fair trial. We’re not just doing this for John. We’re doing this for justice, and our country.”