A Houston woman has entered a plea bargain agreement for manslaughter charges after she administered deadly silicone butt injections into a woman in 2018.
The unlicensed cosmetic surgeon has now been sentenced to eight years in prison for the botched procedure and performing it without the proper certification.
Court documents obtained by Atlanta Black Star show that on Jan. 23, Lisa Fernandez pleaded guilty to the death of Marja McClendon, a 38-year-old Missouri native to prosecutors in Houston, Texas. Fernandez also agreed to serve her sentence concurrently.
McClendon traveled from St. Louis to the Bayou City on April 24, 2018, to meet Fernandez to receive the booty enhancement. The fake doctor administered the silicone injections with a syringe. After getting the first half of the work, the patient started experiencing trauma, coughing, and shortness of breath. Fernandez attempted to complete the procedure but had to stop because her pain was intensifying and at a certain point, she was unable to breathe.
Despite not being able to complete the bodywork, Fernandez refused to refund McClendon her money — prompting the two women to get into an argument that was heard by multiple witnesses.
McClendon would leave but returned to Fernandez the next day to receive the second round of the silicone injections.
This time, McClendon started coughing up blood.
Later that same day she was rushed to a local hospital emergency room for her pain. Reports say, though she knew something was wrong and needed medical assistance, she “left the emergency room before prior evaluation.”
The patient returned to her city and was hospitalized in Missouri. Five days after the second procedure, McClendon died. According to an autopsy report, the manner of death was a homicide. The medical examiner also listed it as a complication of silicone pulmonary embolism.
Dr. Matthew Greives told KHOU that silicone is not approved by the FDA to be used in these particular cosmetic surgical procedures.
“[It] travels in your bloodstream to your heart and your lungs and causes a massive blood clot,” the UTHealth Houston/Memorial Hermann medical professional explained.
The woman’s 13-year-old son, Michael, said he warned his mother about the risks of the operation and told her he didn’t think she should do it.
“I said, ‘Mama, please don’t do that mama. She still went,” the tearful teen said in 2021.
He saw first-hand his mother’s health failing and blamed it all on Fernandez.
“She took my mom from me. She took my mother,” Michael said. “You only get one mom.”
An investigation by the Houston Police Department into the woman’s death led authorities to arrest and charge Fernandez in 2021, according to KENS 5.
The plea deal in the five-year-old case comes weeks after the Florida Board of Medicine reached a settlement with Miami plastic surgeon Dr. Oliver Simmons, whose Brazilian butt lift surgery preceded the death of a 47-year-old Indiana woman named Tanesha Walker.
Though Fernandez was performing medical procedures, she considered herself a “beauty consultant” and had used her home as her place of business since 2004.
