A 31-year-old woman has died after receiving cosmetic buttocks injections from an unlicensed medical practitioner in Manhattan, police say.
The woman, Latesha Bynum of Harlem, went to an East 21st Street apartment in Gramercy Park on July 15 to receive the injections, according to police.
Hours later, Bynum, a mother of two, called 911 from her home, saying she felt dizzy and was experiencing chest pains, her family attorney says. She was taken to Mount Sinai St. Luke's in a coma, and doctors put her on life support.
She died on July 27, three days before her 32nd birthday, according to attorney Jack Yankowitz, who says he's known and represented the woman's family for more than 15 years.
Yankowitz says he intends to sue the so-called "Butt Doctor" for $1 billion -- a figure intended to bring attention to the "horrifying epidemic."
The lawyer says "impressionable" women who lack the financial means to seek proper medical care are lured in by black-market practitioners who inject "silicone poison."
The "Butt Doctor," whom Yankowitz doesn't name, used a Dunkin' Donuts around the corner from his 21st Street apartment as his waiting room, and a woman representing herself as his nurse would meet patients and bring them up to the apartment, Yankowitz alleges.
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The medical examiner will determine a cause of death.
A message has been left with the city Department of Health.
