'I Could Feel... Cutting': Victim In Fake Plastic Surgeon Sentencing
DENVER (CBS4)- Carla Perez says her nose will never be the same. She was one of 50 women botched by Carlos Hernandez Fernandez. He's the fake cosmetic surgeon who was sentenced to prison on Friday.
Hernandez Fernandez is a surgical assistant from Mexico who posed as a doctor. Prosecutors say he was utterly under qualified to perform the dangerous and details surgeries.
"I could feel when he was cutting it open," Perez said. "I was totally bruised, my nose completely dropped, I had no more cartilage, and my septum was completely crooked."
Two nose jobs and a lip injection procedure later, she learned he was never certified to practice plastic surgery.
"He hammered my septum with an actual hammer," Perez told CBS4's Andrea Flores. "I trusted him as a friend, as a doctor."
Perez was one of many victims who spoke out at his sentencing Friday.
A judge sentenced Carlos Hernandez Fernandez Friday afternoon to six years in prison and six additional years of probation.
The patients, many of them immigrants, lined up at his storefront on Federal Boulevard looking for cosmetic surgery.
Even though he offered an apology to his former patients, he was sentenced to six years in prison and six years probation.
"It was never my intention to do anything malicious," Hernandez Fernandez said to a courtroom full of victims.
Prosecutors believe the impostor made money off his victims' misery.
Now, Perez has a message to others who may be considering plastic surgery.
"Do your research and make sure it's a legitimate doctor, because somebody could have died at that table," Perez said.
Prosecutors negotiated a plea deal, a lesser sentence of six years, because they felt the restitution of $189,000 would be more valuable to the victims so they could try to get reconstructive surgery. The court says Hernandez Fernandez showed up with less than $1,000.
Andrea Flores is a reporter for CBS4. Follow her on Facebook and Twitter @AndreaFloresTV.
