CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) – A Brazilian doctor charged with manslaughter in the liposuction death of an immigrant tried to enter a guilty plea Wednesday, but the judge refused to accept the deal after the doctor contradicted several claims by prosecutors about whether the patient could have been saved.
Luiz Carlos Ribeiro, 51, appeared in Middlesex Superior Court to plead guilty to involuntary manslaughter in a case that exposed an underground cosmetic surgery network used by Brazilian immigrants.
But after prosecutors then gave their standard recitation of the facts that they could have proved at trial, Ribeiro told the judge he didn’t agree with many of them. He insisted he did in fact have a sterile surgical area and the proper resuscitation equipment when he performed the fat-removal surgery on Fabiola DePaula the basement of a Framingham condominium in July 2006.
DePaula, a 24-year-old Brazilian immigrant, died of complications from the surgery, including pulmonary fat emboli, or fat particles in the lungs, a complication of liposuction.
Ribeiro insisted there was nothing that could have saved the woman.
“If I had 100 years, I would swear that I didn’t kill anybody because I would never kill,” Ribeiro told the judge. “Fabiola’s death was sudden. I had no chance to do anything.”
Judge Wendie Gershengorn refused to accept Riberio’s guilty plea and set the case for trial beginning April 3.
Prosecutors say Ribeiro performed liposuction, nose jobs and Botox injections for several years in the Framingham area, mostly for the town’s large Brazilian immigrant population, which places a high value on beauty.
The procedures were performed on a massage table, under unsanitary conditions and without any emergency oxygen in place, authorities said.
Prosecutors said if the procedure had been monitored in a hospital, DePaula’s death could have been prevented.
“We are confident that we have a strong case against the defendant and intend to prove that case in court,” District Attorney Gerry Leone said in a statement Wednesday.
In September, Ribeiro’s ex-wife, Ana Maria Miranda Ribeiro, was sentenced to one year in prison when she pleaded guilty to manslaughter and admitted acting as a nurse for her husband.
Luiz Ribeiro was a licensed doctor in his native Belo Horizonte, Brazil, but neither he nor his ex-wife were licensed to practice medicine in the United States, authorities said.
His lawyer, Jean Earley, said after the hearing she was stunned the plea was not accepted. She was going to ask for a 2- to 21/2-year prison term. Prosecutors had planned to seek 6 to 8 years. He’s already served about 18 months since his arrest.
“He’s horrified as any doctor would be about the death of somebody. But he is a good doctor, has practiced medicine for many years in Brazil,” she said.
—
Editor’s Note: Denise Lavoie is a Boston-based reporter covering the courts and legal issues. She can be reached at dlavoie(at)ap.org
AP-ES-01-30-08 1334EST
Send questions/comments to the editors.
