A year after being convicted of involuntary manslaughter for performing a fatal butt lift on Durban’s Karissa Rajpaul, a Californian “beauty therapist” has now been found guilty of second degree murder, and sentenced to 15 years behind bars after a US patient died from a deadly silicone injection.
News24 reports that in this latest case, the patient, Cindyana Santangelo (58), was supposed to be having a relatively simple procedure – the administering of silicone oil injections into her buttocks to remove lumps caused by hormone treatment.
But according her husband Frank, he could see something was very wrong as he watched his wife squirming on the massage table at their home after Libby Adams (55) had started injecting her.
She was soon struggling to breathe, and as blood started streaming from the injection sites, Adams said she was going to her car “to get something to help her”.
Instead, she drove off.
Santangelo called 911 in panic and his wife was immediately taken to hospital – but it was too late. She was pronounced dead, the victim of a woman who’d used a dodgy concoction to give her the smooth bottom of her dreams.
Adams was convicted and sentenced to 15 years to life for killing Santangelo and practising medicine without a licence.
Last year she and her daughter, Alicia Galaz (25), were convicted of involuntary manslaughter after the fatal buff lift on Rajpaul (26) in Sherman Oaks, California, whom they had injected with a liquid silicone mixture typically used for sealing windows.
Rajpaul and her husband had moved to Los Angeles as newly-weds in 2016, and after a miscarriage, sought out the sunny weather and the chance for a happy life together.
Adams was sentenced to four years and four months for causing her death and her daughter was jailed for three years and eight months.
Neither woman holds a medical qualification.
They were both, however, immediately paroled as the judge ruled that the electronic monitoring they’d undergone since their arrests in August 2021 constituted time served towards their sentences.
Adams returned to her dubious practices – and, in Santangelo’s case, the silicone oil from the injection had entered her bloodstream, causing a fatal embolism.
“The victim’s circulatory system thereafter moved the silicone oil into her lungs, which prevented the lungs from providing oxygen to her body,” the judge said.
During the trial, video evidence showed Adams fleeing the scene of another fatal incident in 2018, when a woman died at a salon after one of her injections. Paramedics arrived to treat the victim but no charges were filed against Adams at the time.
Frank Santangelo said his wife was tempted by the low price Adams charged for butt lifts, he said. This cosmetic surgery typically costs around $15 000 but she charged a third of that.
First, however, Santangelo needed to get the lumps in her buttocks removed so she had made an appointment with Adams, who arrived at her house with her mobile kit – a deadly one, as it turned out.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has warned against butt injections, saying unlicensed practitioners were performing unapproved body-contouring medical procedures, sometimes with industrial-grade silicone.
The FDA hasn’t approved the use of liquid silicone injections for cosmetic alterations but unscrupulous providers, many without medical licences, “continue to prey on individuals struggling with body dissatisfaction who are vulnerable to deceptive promises of safety”, says a statement from the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health.
Medical-grade silicone used in breast implants is considered safe because it’s encased in a medical-grade silicone rubber shell.
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
The Bottom Line – the costs and risks of the butt-lift
Woman dies after liposuction procedure as dodgy spas spread worldwide
Brazilian butt lift: Behind the world’s most dangerous cosmetic surgery