Bronx woman sentenced to prison for deadly unlicensed cosmetic surgery
NEW YORK -- Thursday was sentencing day for a Bronx woman who admitted to performing an unlicensed cosmetic surgery that turned deadly.
She'll now spend four to eight years in prison.
Whalesca Castillo pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter connected to the death of Lesbia Ayala. Castillo had injected silicone into her buttocks and thighs.
Just before she was sentenced, she told the court, "I have been regretting this so much. I am so ashamed."
Outside the courthouse, the victim's sister Vanessa Ayala made a brief statement.
"I don't believe for a minute that she is remorseful about what happened," she said.
The defense attorney called his client a good woman who did something that ended in tragedy.
"She didn't intend to harm anyone," Alexi Schacht said. "She's only saying it because she feels it, I believe."
Lesbia Ayala's sister said there is societal pressure on people to look a certain way and that, she said, set the stage for this.
Vanessa Ayala gave a victim impact statement, saying Castillo took advantage of her sister's trust.
"Four years is not enough. I think that today was a great injustice to my family, to my sister," Vanessa Ayala said.
Castillo was found guilty of a similar crime before, back in 2012, and spent less than a year in prison. Now, she returns there.