Bootleg Silicone Injections Nets Woman 16 Months In Prison
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MCALLEN, Texas (CBSDFW.COM/AP) — A South Texas woman was sentenced to almost 1½ years in federal prison for injecting customers' buttocks with bootleg liquid silicone she had brought in from Mexico.
A federal judge in McAllen sentenced Maribel Quintero on Tuesday to 16 months in prison and ordered her to pay $15,760 in restitution after she pleaded guilty to violating the Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act.
A female customer testified at the sentencing hearing that she required hospitalization for an infection after receiving liquid silicone injections in her buttocks from the 39-year-old Pharr woman. The injections weren't approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and Quintero admitted to marketing the injections as safe when they weren't.
This recent sentencing is part of an alarming trend in the state this year. The February 2015 death of a Dallas woman who had cosmetic injections at a salon to increase the size of her buttocks was ruled a homicide. Two salon workers, Denise "Wee Wee" Ross and Jimmy "Alicia" Clarke, were charged. They were later charged with practicing medicine without a license in another case after the woman's death.
According to police, Ross and Clarke ran an illegal butt-enhancing operation out of a hair salon.
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