Fugitive phoney Florida doctor nabbed

Link : http://uk.news.yahoo.com/041008/80/f47t4.html




MIAMI (Reuters) - Police in Belize have arrested a Florida fugitive described by detectives as a fake doctor who drugged his cosmetic surgery patients with an animal anaesthetic and left a male bodybuilder with female breast implants.


Reinaldo Silvestre, 63, was arrested in Belize City, where he was teaching and practising medicine, the U.S. State Department said on Friday.


Silvestre fled after Miami Beach police charged him in 1999 with fraud, aggravated battery, practising medicine without a license and grand theft in connection with botched surgeries that left his patients permanently disfigured.


Police got a tip Silvestre was in Belize and U.S. Embassy officials worked with police in the Central American nation who arrested him. Silvestre was jailed pending extradition to Florida, said Ed Moreno, special agent in Miami with the Bureau of Diplomatic Security.


Miami Beach police said in 1999 that Silvestre had no medical license and operated late at night at a clinic on Lincoln Road Mall, a trendy strip of outdoor cafes and shops.


He anaesthetised patients with Ketamine, an animal tranquilliser known on the street as "Special K," police said.


They began investigating after a patient, described as a former model in her 20s, showed them a videotape she made of Silvestre operating on a male body builder who wanted pectoral implants to make his chest look more muscular.


"He ended up with female breast implants," police Capt. Charles Press said in 1999.


Police said the tape showed Silvestre jamming the C-cup implants into the patient's chest with "a spatula-type thing that you'd see in a kitchen" and sewing up the incision with crude X-shaped stitches. He said the patient awoke three times during the procedure and was told to go back to sleep.


The woman videotaped the operation at Silvestre's request because he had never performed a pectoral surgery and wanted to document his work, police said at the time.


The charges involved three patients, but police have said they suspect there were more mutilated victims who were too embarrassed to come forward.


Moreno said Silvestre worked at a hospital in Belize City and taught at a medical university where he coached students preparing to take exams for doctor licensing.