Graham Platner was looking for a cover-up.

Nearly 20 years ago, the Maine Democrat drunkenly selected a skull and crossbones design while out on leave with his fellow Marines in Croatia. It wasn’t until several weeks into his campaign for a key U.S. Senate seat that Platner says he discovered that the design was recognized as a Nazi symbol.

Rather than wait through multiple sessions of laser removal, Platner called a friend to help him get rid of it.

“It was a phone call like: ‘Hey, I have a tattoo. I found out it’s something I don’t want, can you help me cover it up?’” Mischa Ostberg, an artist based in Ellsworth, Maine, told The Associated Press in an interview.

Ostberg, a self-proclaimed “baby tattooer” who has been licensed to ink for just two years, was eager to help. For Ostberg,

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