Woman Gets 15 Years For Cooking Oil Death
A former beautician who injected cooking oil into a woman's buttocks as an anti-aging treatment, killing the client, has been sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Martha Mata Vasquez, 39, who pleaded no contest in October to involuntary manslaughter, practicing medicine without a license and fraud, apologized during Wednesday's sentencing hearing.
"I'm very sorry to my family, and I'm sorry to them (the victims and their families)," the married mother of two said.
Vasquez had charged clients up to $1,400 for each injection of Mazola corn oil, claiming the "French polymer" treatment would reduce wrinkles, prosecutors said.
Maria Olivia Castillo, 46, of Castroville died in November 2005 of multiple organ failure caused by a fat blockage brought about by a cooking oil injection, prosecutors said. Similar injections caused medical complications for others and put one patient into a coma, prosecutors said.
Vasquez's defense attorney, Tom Worthington, said she was unaware the injections would do any harm and that the sentence was too harsh, reported the Monterey County Herald.
"This was the result of negligent conduct, not an intent to kill," Worthington said. "We are convinced she didn't know what she was doing would cause harm."
The prosecution disagreed. "That couldn't be farther from the truth," said Deputy District Attorney Steve Somers, noting Vasquez continued to perform the procedure after clients became ill.
Worthington said in Mexico it is common to perform cosmetic injections and that Vasquez, a Mexican immigrant, learned the process there. Vasquez's clients told her they were planning trips to Mexico for the injections, but she offered to do them in California instead, the Herald reported.
"She thought she was doing them a favor," Worthington said.
Somers remained unmoved: "We still believe she knew what she was doing. She wanted the money more than she cared about (her victims). We hope this serves as a lesson. That's why we do this, so no one will do this again."