An amateur Avondale tattoo artist who traded a tattoo for sex with a teenage girl was sentenced to prison today after pleading guilty to two counts of attempted child prostitution and two counts of unlawful tattooing for the April 2010 incident.
Juan Lara, 38, was in a Maricopa County Superior Court this morning where he was sentenced by Judge Glenn Davis to 7.5 years in prison and three years probation for the child prostitution charges. Additionally, he was sentenced to 1.5 years in prison and five years probation for the unlawful tattooing charges.
The sentences are to run concurrently.
Lara, who goes by the street name "Memo," was running a makeshift tattoo parlor out of a room he rented at an Avondale trailer park when he gave tattoos to two 16-year-old girls without their parents' permission.
One of the girls paid for her ink by having sex with Lara.
At the time of his arrest, police thought Lara was targeting young girls, and thought there could potentially be more victims -- although, none came forward after his arrest.