JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – News4Jax has obtained three arrest reports that detail allegations from three different women who accuse a Jacksonville tattoo artist of sexual assault.
James Ranieri, 36, was arrested in Volusia County. He had a tattoo shop in Riverside for several years.
In the arrest reports, all three women told police they were assaulted at Ranieri’s Riverside apartment. They told investigators, the reports state, that they were forced to have unprotected sex and that Ranieri would get angry when he didn’t get his way.
The documents allege the crimes occurred between 2015 and 2018.
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Heather Shaver told News4Jax she met Ranieri last year.
“He seemed super nice and friendly at first,” Shaver said. “And we exchanged numbers and he asked me to hangout and, you know, he kind of made it seem like he was super trustworthy.”
A musician named Anthony Raneri posted on social media in April, saying he had heard that a tattoo artist in Jacksonville was claiming to be his cousin to impress women, but that the two are not related.
Shaver says she was told the same thing.
A day after making the post, the musician, a member of the band Bayside, contacted the Mayor’s Office, and they got in touch with the State Attorney and the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office to alert them to the allegations that he had stumbled across.
According to JSO, Ranieri’s job as a tattoo artist gave him “frequent contact with the community.”
“Therefore, the possibility exists there may be more victims,” JSO said in a news release.
Police asked anyone with information about the case or any other possible victims to contact JSO at 904-630-0500 or through email at JSOCrimeTips@Jaxsheriff.org.