A Rosedale woman who pleaded guilty to criminally negligent homicide in a botched butt enhancement procedure, has been sentenced to a year in jail, prosecutors said.
Donna Francis, 39, who has no training as a doctor, unlawfully performed a butt implant procedure in May 2015 that caused the death of a Maryland woman who had traveled to Far Rockaway for the discounted augmentation.
Francis pleaded guilty last month before Queens Supreme Court Justice C. Holder, who on Thursday sentenced the defendant in accordance with a stipulation of an agreed-upon extradition order limiting Fancis’ sentence to a year in jail. Francis had fled to London, England, following the botched procedure.
According to the charges, on May 30, 2015, a 34-year-old woman and her mother traveled from their home in Suitland, Md., to meet Francis for the buttock augmentation procedure, which took place in the basement of a home on Dickens Street in Far Rockaway. Francis injected a clear fluid into the victim’s buttocks.
As Francis proceeded to administer a second injection, the victim began to show signs of distress. The victim’s mother called 911 and emergency responders arrived and found the victim at the bottom of the stairs lying face up. The victim was transported to a nearby hospital where she was declared dead.
The medical examiner found that the victim’s death was caused by systemic silicone emboli. When injected into a human body, silicone must be encapsulated to avoid free silicone from entering the bloodstream and causing an embolism.
According to the charges, Fancis ran out of her basement and drove away from the scene before being questioned. She fled the country the following day.
“A young woman simply seeking to enhance her physical appearance instead sadly lost her life at the hands of an incompetent quack who turned a basement apartment into a second-rate medical office —complete with a massage table and silicone gel purchased off the eBay website,” Acting Queens District Attorney John M. Ryan said. “As the victim lay dying, the defendant sought to avoid prosecution for her actions by first fleeing the scene and then the country. For years, she aggressively fought extradition from England.”
