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A shady New York City body piercer repeatedly jabbed a woman’s tongue with a needle, causing “massive bleeding” and severe injuries that landed her in the ER, a new lawsuit alleges.
Elsa Weingeist, 25, visited Funky Town on St. Marks Place in the East Village in September to get a tongue stud — lured by a storefront advertising “body piercings.”
But the psychiatric office worker and East Village native regretted the decision within minutes — and spent weeks in agony after the doomed piercing session with employee Shamim Islam, according to a lawsuit she filed in Manhattan Supreme Court on Oct. 16.
The procedure allegedly turned into a bloody nightmare, with Islam stabbing through her tongue at least four times, despite assuring her everything would go smoothly, the suit said.
“He just kept poking and poking — it’s like a horror movie,” one of Weingeist’s attorneys, Darius A. Marzec, told The Post.
Weingeist told The Post that she had to beg Islam to stop.
“It was mostly just him apologizing that he was messing up and asking to do it again and I could only take it so many times so I told him just he needed to stop after the fourth time,” she recalled.
She then demanded to see his piercing license — which he didn’t have, she claimed. She took a closer look at the credentials displayed on the wall and discovered that none of them were for piercings — and none displayed Islam’s name, she said.
“Nobody in there had a piercing license,” she said. “I had confidence in him [before the piercing] because he had told me that he’d been doing this a long time.”
Her mouth was allegedly filled with blood when she dialed 911, but Weingeist said she and her friend left the shop before police arrived because emergency responders were taking too long.
She sought out medical attention at an urgent care, which told her she had to go to the hospital.
In the emergency room, Weingeist said she got bloodwork done and received a tetanus shot. Doctors told her the grueling healing process would take time, she claimed.
“It was so painful. It was hard to talk,” she said.
Weingeist, a Fashion Institute of Technology graduate, is seeking unspecified damages.
Standard tongue piercings are done with a clamp and one clean pass through the tongue and take about six to eight weeks to heal. Islam used a clamp, but penetrated Weingeist’s tongue several times, the lawsuit claims.
Funky Town, which has been a fixture in the neighborhood for nearly two decades, has been the subject of awful Yelp reviews for years.
“Absolutely never come here for piercings…it’s been 8 months and it’s still not healed,” claims one from October 2025.
Another testimonial from July 2025 reads: “Do not go here for a piercing. I got mine 4 months ago. It is still bleeding. I took care of it and cleaned it. Both me and my friend experienced the same bleeding.
“They never once asked for an ID or paperwork when we walked in which seems illegal for a piercing place. We’re of age to get it so I don’t think I’d return here. They were also very pushy for us to pay more money and get more piercings. There were flies and bugs swarming the piercing room. Not really sanitary.”
“The piercer has no idea what he’s doing,” a review from November 2020 reads. “He uses the wrong jewelry and the piercing came out crooked. Couple days later, it was infected.”
When reached by phone, a Funky Town employee told The Post that Islam quit shortly after the alleged incident.
She claimed Weingeist is only suing because “she wants money.” The worker admitted that Islam was not licensed to do piercings, but others in the store are.
“You don’t like [the piercing], take it out it’s not a problem,” she said.
The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, which is responsible for licensing piercing studios, the New York State Department of Health, and the NYPD did not return requests for comment.