Man accused of illegally tattooing juvenile waives hearing

Jason Wambold, 20, of North Wales, faces trial on a pair of misdemeanors

WHITPAIN >> A 20-year-old North Wales man accused of illegally tattooing a juvenile girl’s knuckles with an obscenity is headed for trial on two of three criminal counts filed against him after waiving his preliminary hearing in district court.

Jason Curtis Wambold, of the 100 block of South Third Street, appeared with his lawyer before Wh- itpain District Judge Robert Sobeck and waived misdemeanor counts of tattooing a minor without consent and making a false report to law enforcement that falsely incriminates another person.

Prosecutors withdrew a misdemeanor count of unsworn falsification to authorities as part of the waiver agreement.

Wambold, who is free on $10,000 unsecured bail, was ordered by Sobeck to appear at Montgomery County court on Dec. 9 for his formal arraignment on the two charges.

Upper Gwynedd police have said in court documents that department detectives launched an investigation into the matter after the 17-year-old girl showed up at school with “F--- You” tattooed across the knuckles of both hands, then told an individual who reported it to police that she got the tattoo while she was asleep, although the reporting source told investigators the girl might have been passed out when the incident occurred in mid-Au- gust, according to a criminal complaint.

On Sept. 7, the complaint states, detectives brought Wambold in to Upper Gwynedd police headquarters to provide a written statement about the incident, and Wambold allegedly said that he, another man, another woman and the 17-year-old girl were all together at the Upper Gwynedd Park Pavilion that night and the woman and the girl said they wanted tattoos but he told them no because the 17-year-old was a mi- nor and it was illegal to tattoo her without parental consent.

Howe ver, Wambold said, the other man that was with them offered to do the tattoo, and even though Wambold and the other woman tried to talk the girl out of it, she insisted and the other man used Wambold’s tattoo gun to do the tattooing, according to the complaint.

Three days later, detectives said, the girl came to the police station and showed investigators a Facebook message Wambold sent to her prior to his giving his statement on Sept. 7, telling her that he was going to tell police that someone else tattooed her so he wouldn’t get charged, and asking her “not to say anything so that he would not go to jail,” the complaint indicates.

However, the girl told detectives that Wambold was, in fact, the person who tattooed her, police said.

On Sept. 22, police said, Wambold was re-interviewed by detectives and at that point admitted to sending the Facebook message, that he lied to police and that he was the one who tattooed the girl.