A man who injected women's buttocks with dangerous industrial-grade silicone in hotel rooms in the D.C. area has been sentenced to more than a decade in prison.
Vinnie Taylor, 44, was sentenced on Friday to 14 years in federal prison followed by three years of supervised release after a woman died after he illegally performed the procedure, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a statement.
Taylor admitted that between 2008 and 2014 he gave silicone injections to customers who wanted larger buttocks. He was not a licensed medical practitioner, prosecutors said. He charged between $800 and $1,000 for the initial injections and between $350 and $800 for subsequent procedures, prosecutors said.
Taylor injected the industrial-grade silicone -- which he told customers was medical-grade silicone -- into the buttocks of a woman in a hotel room on March 20, 2014, prosecutors said. The woman began having trouble breathing after she left the hotel. She checked herself into a hospital two days later. After another two days, she died.
An autopsy determined the woman died of respiratory failure "due to a foreign substance causing a pulmonary embolization." Her death was ruled a homicide.
Taylor initially was charged with first-degree murder. Those charges were dropped as part of a plea agreement. Taylor admitted in his plea that his actions caused the death of the woman in 2014, prosecutors said.
The U.S. Food & Drug Administration warned that illegal injections can be deadly.
Local
Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia local news, events and information
“FDA regulates medical devices to protect the public from potentially dangerous complications and side effects. Industrial-grade silicone that is injected into individuals’ bodies can cause serious bodily injury or death,” FDA special agent Mark S. McCormack said in a statement.
In recent years, numerous other cases involving illegal buttocks injections have surfaced.
In 2014, a Tennessee woman, Natasha Stewart, was found guilty of manslaughter in connection with the illicit silicone buttocks injections that prosecutors say killed a Georgia woman in 2012.
Authorities say Stewart, an adult entertainer also known as Pebbelz Da Model, took $200 for a referral to the alleged injector and falsely represented the injector as a nurse.
A South Florida woman, Oneal Morris, was arrested in 2011 after several victims said she had injected their legs and buttocks with a mixture that was found to contain Fix-a-Flat, cement and superglue. She pleaded guilty to practicing medicine without a license.
A woman named Christina previously spoke with News4 about her own legal buttocks-enhancement surgery.
"I think the whole Kardashian complex has taken over and a lot of people do want that look from behind," she said. "You can't cheap out on this one. It's your health and your body."
Surgery typically costs several thousand dollars.
