Phony plastic surgeon is ordered to pay $5 million

Another tragic example in the Latino community of a poseur performing cosmetic surgery came to it's conclusion recently. If you remember last summer, this well-documented episode near Boston where someone died after complications from liposuction performed in the basement of an apartment complex.

Cuban national, Reinaldo Silvestre, operated in an unliscened medical clinic in the late 1990s in Miami Beach. He offered very low rates and dealt primarily with immigrants who wanted plastic surgery. Silvestre, "the Butcher of South Beach", abruptly abandoned the United States in Miami Beach in 1999 when investigations into his practices began after a number of complaints. He was collared five years later in Belize, where he was performing surgeries and aparently a faculty member at a local medical school. One of his students saw an America's Most Wanted episode profiling him and alerted authorities.

A victim of a botched breast surgery necessitating nearly $100,000 USD in reconstructive surgery was awarded nearly $5 million USD for pain and suffering. As a foreign national with no assests here, it would seem likely that little if any of this award will be realized (and remember 30-50% of the award often goes to the attorney).

Apparently Silvestre also had occasion to videotape surgery (a screen capture pic is shown below) on a male patient, former Mexican national champion bodybuilder, Alex Baez. Baez had gone in seeking pectoral implants, but awoke to find he had been given female breast implants. Baez's attorney says his client was anesthetized with horse tranquilizers, and actually woke up several times during the surgeries. El doctor Silvestre was also demonstrated using kitchen utensils for parts of the surgery.

Spencer Aronfeld, a lawyer for several alleged victims of Silvestre, said Mr. Baez wanted pumped-up pectorals but came out of surgery performed by Silvestre with what looked like women's breasts

"So this big bodybuilder from Mexico wakes up from this surgery expecting to look like Tarzan and instead he looks like Pamela (Anderson Lee), Dolly Parton,"

A detailed narrative from Maxim magazine about this can be read here.



That is not what male pectoral implants should look like (if you couldn't figure that out already)! They tend to be low-profile flat devices traditionally molded from semi-solid silicone rubber rather then silicone rubber shells filled with gel as implants for breast augmentation or reconstruction are.