Old joke: What message are people with face tattoos trying to send? Answer: Don't ever hire me for a real job.
New version: I'm a racist idiot and probably guilty of everything I'm charged with, and then some:
John Allen Ditullio Jr., an avowed neo-Nazi whose face and neck are covered with tattoos -- including a swastika -- will appear at his murder trial this week minus the lurid markings thanks to a $125-a-day taxpayer-funded make-over.
Ditullio's attorney persuaded the judge that the "scary" tattoos would prejudice the Florida jury. The state is paying a cosmetologist to cover the tattoos every day during the trial because Ditullio is indigent.
I find myself agreeing with Alan Dershowitz, who says the tattoos are an extension of Ditullio's personality and masking the marks could be construed as misleading to a jury. He chooses to present himself to the world in a certain way, and the same neo-Nazi ideology that prompted the face and neck art, it could be argued, led him to kill who he did.
