Unlicensed Beautician Pleads Guilty To 2015 Botched Butt Injection That Killed Woman
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) - A beautician who fled to England has pleaded guilty in New York after the death of an American woman with a botched buttocks injection in an unlicensed Queens clinic.
In August, 39-year-old Donna Francis was extradited and arraigned on charges including criminally negligent homicide. At the time she entered a plea of not guilty.
Francis injected 34-year-old Kelly Mayhew in a Queens basement in May 2015. Mayhew had traveled from Maryland for the procedure.
"The defendant set up shop in the basement of a Far Rockaway home using a massage table for an examination table and silicone gel that had been purchased from the website Ebay," said Acting District Attorney John M. Ryan. "The victim in this case traveled from Maryland with her mother and paid $1,600 cash for the injections. Sadly, the treatment killed her.
"She went into cardiac arrest as the defendant pumped a clear liquid substance into the woman's backside," said Ryan. "The defendant, who fought extradition, will serve time behind bars as a result of her actions."
Francis will be sentenced on Nov. 14, 2019, with up to a year in jail per the extradition order limiting her incarceration to no more than one year.
According to the district attorney's office, as part of the terms of the extradition agreement, Francis will be held in Suffolk County and not at Rikers Island.
FLASHBACK: Maryland Woman Dies After Receiving Injections In Buttocks
Authorities say that Francis was not a licensed nurse or physician, and that Mayhew died because the procedure wasn't done properly.
While the victim's mother called 911, the woman performing the procedure took off in a gray SUV.
Mayhew was pronounced dead on arrival at St. John's Hospital.
Francis unsuccessfully fought extradition.
Illicit silicone injections have caused multiple deaths in the United States.
In March 2018, 46-year-old Allison Spence was sentenced to two to eight years in prison for the death of Harlem mother Latesha Bynum in another botched butt injection in 2017.
Spence was also running an unlicensed clinic in Queens.
(© Copyright 2019 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)