Piercer at parlor in American Fork is facing 4 felony counts

AMERICAN FORK — Piercing just got painful for one local artist.

Shandi Child, a piercing specialist with Happy Valley Tattoo & Piercing, was charged with four counts of distributing harmful materials to minors, a second-degree felony. Police say Child allowed several minors to see pornographic photos.

American Fork police received a call from a man who said his daughter and her friends had been to the tattoo parlor and viewed what he believed were pornographic materials. In January, they executed a search warrant in the shop for all photographs of genital piercings.

Child says she isn't guilty and feels the charges were filed because people aren't comfortable with a tattoo and piercing parlor in Utah Valley.

"I think they're going after me because of where I work and what I do for a living and the fact that they don't like it," she said.

Child and the shop's owner, Greg Lowrey, said the story the teenagers told the police has changed several times. Lowrey said initially the police told them six teenagers had gone in during the last two weeks of December, and several days later they said four teenagers had gone into the shop between the beginning of November and the end of December.

American Fork Police Lt. Darren Falslev told the Deseret Morning News in January that the teens had gone to the shop between the end of November and the first of December.

"We clarified some information; the kids remember a little bit different," he said, when asked if the teens had changed their stories.

The shop keeps all photos of genital piercings in one book labeled "Adult Piercings," Lowrey said. Although the binder was in the front of the store at the time, the shop now keeps all the albums behind the front counter. Lowrey said Child, who is married and has a 2-year-old boy, has always been a good employee and a good person and believes she didn't give the teenagers the material.

"She's one of the finest people I've known in Utah," he said. "She's highly ethical and a good mom."

Because the winter is such a slow season for the parlor, they keep track of every person who enters the store. Both Child and Lowrey maintain that only one group of teenagers entered the shop in the fall and they didn't look at any of the binders.

Child said one of the girls in the group, who had been in earlier in the year with her mother to get her lip pierced, asked Child to pierce the other side of her lip. Under Utah County law, a minor's parent has to be with the minor for piercings, and because the girl didn't have a parent with her, Child refused. She says the girl then asked her to meet her somewhere else and pierce her. Child refused again and asked the group to leave, but none of them, she said, looked at any of the binders.

Child will be arraigned in 4th District Court on March 27.

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E-mail: csmith@desnews.com