Suspect Questioned In Botched Butt-Lift Procedure
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Police say the woman who died after having an illegal buttocks-enhancement injection at a South Philadelphia hotel was not a first-time customer.
Philadelphia police detectives spent Wednesday morning back at the Hampton Inn near Philadelphia International Airport speaking to the three friends of 20-year-old Claudia Seye Aderotimi, a student from London whose death in Philadelphia is now under investigation.
Authorities have questioned one woman they believe was involved in the procedure, and they're still looking for another.
Although she died early Tuesday, after getting the injections in a room at the Hampton Inn on Bartram Avenue (above), police lieutenant Ray Evers says Aderotimi had gotten a previous treatment in the city late last year.
Valerie Levesque reports...
"This female decedent did receive an enhancement procedure in November from the same group, and we believe that this group has performed procedures before," Evers told KYW Newsradio on Wednesday.
Lt. Evers believes more customers will come forward with concerns, but authorities are still working to identify the woman who delivered the injections. (see previous story).
Police have questioned — but not charged — a Bergen County, NJ woman whom they say worked to set up appointments for the procedures.
"We're identifying her role as a scheduler — someone who actually communicated with the group from the UK, made arrangements, helped them get a hotel, things of that nature," Evers said.
As of Wednesday night, police were still searching for the second individual who is believed to have administered the procedure.
The Delaware County Medical Examiner told Eyewitness News, the exact cause of death will be determined once further test results are returned.
Police say their investigation is continuing and charges are pending.
This operation is part of growing trend called medical tourism, and as this latest case shows, it has branched out from its traditional roots in South America.
The website CosmeticVacations.com touts a "butt lift" in Brazil with a headline assuring potential customers that such "augmentation is becoming more popular."
The draw for trips like this is cost -- for the price of surgery in the states, you could score the procedure plus a weeklong vacation overseas:
"But even in the United States, people might be falsely under the impression that the person performing it is trained and it doing something that is approved."
Malcolm Roth, the president-elect of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, says that may be what happened at that hotel in Philadelphia. And he's troubled by the word-of-mouth misinformation that serves as online advertising for procedures that promise the world:
"You get what you pay for. If it smells funny, it probably is."
Reported by Ian Bush, KYW Newsradio; Elizabeth Hur, CBS 3
