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THE WEEK OF DECEMBER 27, 2002
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Caused Disfigurement With Injections
A Manhattan couple has been sentenced to prison for posing as physicians and recklessly endangering the lives of patients they were unauthorized to treat by injecting them with a Botox-like substance which caused life-threatening infection and disfigurement.
Queens District Attorney Richard Brown identified the defendants as Eliezar Fernandez, 53, and Iris Fernandez, 49, his wife, who claims to have been a dentist in her native Venezuela. Both defendants live at 316 Third Avenue in Manhattan and have been sentenced before Queens Supreme Court Justice Dorothy Chin Brandt.
Eliezar Fernandez was sentenced to serve a term of two and one-third to seven years in prison. Iris Fernandez was sentenced to serve a term of two to six years in prison.
The defendants pled guilty on October 30, 2002 to Reckless Endangerment in the First Degree, a Class D felony. They admitted that between February 28, 2002 and May 22, 2002 at 24-17 77th Street in Astoria and at various hotels in Manhattan, they recklessly and illegally provided medical treatment, including injections of non-FDA approved substances into the faces, torsos and buttocks of 20 individuals, creating a grave risk of death to those individuals.
According to the New York State Department of Health, it is illegal for anyone who is not a physician licensed to practice medicine in New York to inject any substance for the treatment of skin conditions.
“The defendants preyed upon unsuspecting individuals who believed that they were doctors, injected them with a Botox-like substance and placed the health and lives of those men and women at risk,” said District Attorney Brown. “Their conduct was dangerous. Their greed was reprehensible. Their victims were injured and scarred. Their punishment fits the crime.”
The investigation was conducted by NYPD Major Case Squad detectives, including Detective Edgar Olmedo and Detective David Castro, under the supervision of Lieutenant Donald Dragon and under the overall supervision of Deputy Inspector George Duke, New York State Department of Education Senior Investigator Thomas Meade under the supervision of Chief Investigator Daniel Kelleher and investigators of the New York City Department of Health.
Assistant District Attorney Allen Bode of the District Attorney’s Economic and Environmental Crimes Bureau prosecuted the case under the supervision of Assistant District Attorneys Brian Hich, Chief, and Diane Peress, Deputy Chief, and under the overall supervision of Executive Assistant District Attorney for Investigations Peter Crusco and Linda Cantoni, Counsel to the Investigations Division.