A Rosedale woman faces homicide charges for allegedly performing a butt enhancement procedure that wound up killing a Maryland woman, prosecutors announced on Friday.
Donna Francis, 38, was arraigned before the Queens Criminal Court on charges of criminally negligent homicide and unauthorized practice of a profession. She had been extradited back to New York after fleeing to London, England, where she fought extradition up until now. Her last known address was on Huxley Street in Rosedale.
Per the stipulations of the extradition agreement, Francis is being held in a Suffolk County Correction Facility and is due to return to court on Sept. 27. If convicted, Francis faces up to a year in jail, pursuant to the extradition order limiting a sentence greater than one year.
“The defendant is alleged to have set up a temporary medical practice in the basement of a Far Rockaway home with a massage table and silicone gel purchased from eBay,” said acting District Attorney John M. Ryan. “The victim in this case traveled from Maryland with her mother and $1,600 cash and the hope of returning home with the perfect figure. Sadly, she never returned home. She died as the defendant allegedly pumped a clear liquid substance into the woman’s backside, causing her to go into cardiac arrest. The defendant, who fought extradition, now faces prison time for these alleged egregious actions.”
According to charges, on May 30, 2015, a 34-year-old woman and her mother allegedly traveled from their home in Suitland, Maryland to Francis for a buttock augmentation procedure in the basement of a home on Dickens Street in Far Rockaway.
Shortly after 6 p.m. that same day, emergency responders arrived at the scene after the victim’s mother called 911 and found the victim lying face up at the bottom of the stairs.
The victim was rushed to a nearby hospital, where she was pronounced dead. The medical examiner found that the victim’s cause of death was systemic silicone emboli. Any silicone injected into a human body must be encapsulated to avoid free silicone from entering the bloodstream and causing an embolism.
Charges say that Francis, who is not a licensed nurse or physician, allegedly fled the scene and would flee to London the next day. Police executed a court-authorized search of another address used by Francis, they allegedly found syringes, a jug filled with a clear liquid consistent with silicone and an invoice with the defendant’s name on it from eBay for jugs of dimethicone, a silicone-based product.
