Botched back tattoo put ‘traumatized’ man into therapy, lawsuit says

EXCLUSIVE: A language barrier between artist and client led to disaster for a New York City man, who can’t get the offending ink lasered off due to the moles covering his back

A New York City man got a full-back tattoo he claims the artist botched so badly, it put him into therapy to deal with the trauma, according to a lawsuit obtained by The Independent.

When 30-year-old Samvel Sarhsian decided to get tattooed, he chose Inked NYC, a famed shop on the West Side of Manhattan. The parlor has inked everyone from 50 Cent to Post Malone to Nick Cannon, the former Mr. Mariah Carey, and is an offshoot of a national magazine called, appropriately, Inked.

But instead of the top-shelf backpiece he was expecting, Sarhsian’s lawsuit says half his torso wound up covered in “a patchy image with blurred features and notably distorted facial elements.” In the suit, Sarhsian accuses the artist of, among numerous other failings, further making a hash of things by “overlooking the natural curvature of Plaintiff’s spine.”

At the same time, getting the offending piece lasered off “poses significant health risks” for Sarhsian, because, the lawsuit states, “his back is covered with small moles, making the procedure more complicated and potentially dangerous.”

Samvel Sarhsian’s tattoo after one day of work (Courtesy Samvel Sarhsian)

“[My client] is very distressed about it,” Sarhsian’s attorney, Vano Haroutunian, told The Independent. “I’ve seen what it was supposed to be, and it was completely wrong. This guy was supposed to be, like, a master. He was quite disappointed.”

Through a translator, Sarhsian, whose first language is Armenian, said his back has become a source of humiliation and ridicule from his friends, who say the tattoo — for which Sarhsian said he paid $7,500 —looks like it was done in a “basement” somewhere.

When Sarhsian first saw what had been done to his back, he said he felt anger, then disappointment, regret, and now, shame.

“The tattoo is nothing like what I was promised,” he told The Independent. “It looks nothing like what they said it would look like.”

Inked president Don Hellinger told The Independent he was unaware that Sarhsian had filed suit until being contacted on Monday for comment, and is “looking into this matter now.”

Samvel Sarhsian asked for a tattoo identical to this photo (Courtesy Samvel Sarhsian)

“I haven’t read the entire complaint yet, but we will do our best to reach an agreement with this gentleman,” Hellinger said.

On October 9, 2023, Sarhsian arrived at Inked NYC for an appointment with well-known South American tattooist Gian Villena, who was in town from São Paulo and doing a residency at the shop, the lawsuit states. The job would take five to six sessions, and Sarhsian put down a $500 deposit to secure his spot. He showed up at Inked NYC’s 22nd Street location around noon and sat down with Villena to discuss the tattoo he wanted, according to the suit.

However, both Villena, a Portuguese speaker, and Sarhsian “lacked sufficient proficiency in English to effectively communicate,” the lawsuit contends. So, it continues, the Inked NYC studio manager “facilitated” the conversation between them about the details of Sarhsian’s desired ink. She was Ukrainian, according to Sarhsian, who said he lived in Ukraine as a child and can speak the language.

Before the work could get started, Sarhsian was given a legal release form to sign, which was also in English.

Samvel Sarhsian was especially upset about his tattoo’s “blurred features and notably distorted facial elements,” the suit says (Courtesy Samvel Sarhsian)

Once the paperwork was squared away, Villena began inking Sarhsian’s back, according to the lawsuit.

But, it alleges, “Instead of meticulously hand-drawing the high-quality image, Villena used automatic lines through digital means, likely with a standard iPad program like Procreate… Villena applied a sketch with random lines, some unrelated to the original composition, and significant blurring due to the image transformation technique used by Villena.”

Sarhsian at one point looked at his back in the mirror, and had major concerns about what he saw, the lawsuit states. He surveyed the employees at Inked NYC about the allegedly shoddy work, but everyone there “assured him that Villena was a skilled artist and encouraged him to trust the process,” according to the suit.

Samvel Sarhsian walked away before the tattoo was complete, fearing an even worse outcome were he to stay until the end (Courtesy Samvel Sarhsian)

When Villena was done, Sarhsian was distraught with the outcome, which the lawsuit says “was of low and unworkmanlike quality.”

“Villena made errors, including mirroring the image horizontally, not centering the tattoo’s composition, and overlooking the natural curvature of Plaintiff’s spine,” the suit states. “... Villena deviated from the agreed-upon proportions, failed to achieve smooth, realistic transitions, and his work lacked the necessary contrast to highlight the image’s form.”

Further, the suit claims, Villena’s “prolonged work with a very light pigment further resulted in Plaintiff experiencing skin trauma.”

Hellinger said on Monday that he was under the impression Sarhsian still had several sessions to go before the tattoo would be completed. Sarhsian conceded he abandoned the project before the piece was done, but claims he requested a different artist finish the job but was rebuffed. When he threatened to sue, Sarhsian claims the shop stopped returning his calls altogether.

Samvel Sarhsian requested an exact copy of an existing tattoo he had been coveting. The result was not at all what he wanted (Courtesy Samvel Sarhsian)

As a result of Villena’s “reckless and negligent actions,” Sarhsian suffered severe emotional distress and psychological trauma, “for which he was and is being treated,” according to the lawsuit. He now has anxiety, difficulty sleeping, and gets “severe headaches,” the suit states, adding, “Since the date of the incident, Plaintiff has been unable to overcome the fear of receiving tattoo work.”

Earlier this year, a Canadian woman sued a Las Vegas tattoo parlor over an artist she claims was under the influence when he tattooed her with an image wholly unlike the one she agreed to. In that instance, the tattoo artist’s license had expired, opening up a pathway to a lawsuit, which remains pending. Other lawsuits have been filed by customers who said their tattoos left them scarred, or caused infections. In one 2014 incident, a Staten Island senior sued over a “permanent makeup” tattoo that allegedly left her with an asymmetrical eyebrow.

In Sarhsian’s case, the suit says Inked NYC handed him over to a tattoo artist — Villena — who had not been “sufficiently instructed, trained, and supervised to properly perform his duties.” The tattoo Sarhsian was given, according to the lawsuit, constitutes “misconduct of an egregious nature that exceeds all bounds usually tolerated by a civilized society.”

Inked NYC and Villena now have 20 days to file a response to Sarhsian’s allegations.