http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/10/ ... _Death.php

Friends, family of surgery death victim angered over deportation to Brazil
The Associated Press
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2006
BOSTON A woman who authorities claimed used her basement as a makeshift operating room for illegal cosmetic surgery has been deported, evading prosecution for the death of a 24-year-old woman following a liposuction procedure carried out in the room.

And while the Brazilian doctor who prosecutors say performed the fatal surgery is awaiting trial on manslaughter charges, his wife, facing identical charges, may also be deported.

Prosecutors have been frustrated by the collision of the deportation process with their criminal prosecution in the July 30 death of Fabiola DePaula, a Brazilian immigrant who worked as a nanny in the Boston suburb of Framingham.

DePaula, a native of Sanclerlandia, Brazil, went to see Luiz Carlos Ribeiro for a nose job on July 27, then returned to him three days later for liposuction. According to the autopsy report, DePaula died of complications from the procedure, including pulmonary fat emboli, or fat particles in the lungs.

Prosecutors said Ribeiro was licensed to practice medicine in Brazil, but not in the United States, where authorities now say he had been coming for years to charge thousands of dollars for underground cosmetic surgeries. Both he and his wife, Ana Maria Miranda Ribeiro, were charged with manslaughter, while Ana Celia Pena Sielemenn, the owner of the condominium, was charged with distributing drugs as an anesthetic.

Sielemenn was deported to Brazil on Sept. 1 and no longer faces prosecution in the case.

Jacqueline Foster, a friend of DePaula's, said her friends and family are very upset that Sielemenn will not stand trial and concerned that Mrs. Ribeiro may also be able to escape prosecution.

"We are afraid she will be deported — walking free, having a life of her own and having fun," Foster said. "If they go back (to Brazil), they are not going to pay for their crimes."

"We are the ones who are paying for their crimes because we are the ones who have to deal with the fact that Fabiola isn't here anymore. She was so young — she didn't have to die that way."

Paula Grenier, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said an immigration judge had ordered Ana Sielemenn's deportation in July 2001, but she remained in the United States illegally.

When she posted bail in her criminal case, she was taken into federal custody and later deported, Grenier said.

"We were in contact with the district attorney's office, and there was no paperwork filed by them requesting for her to be remanded to their custody, so we were obligated to enforce the judge's order to remove her from the U.S.," Grenier said.

Melissa Sherman, a spokeswoman for Middlesex District Attorney Martha Coakley, said prosecutors were aware of the immigration detainer on Sielemenn, but "we didn't realize that she was going to be deported so quickly."

Mrs. Ribeiro was also taken into custody by immigration officials after she posted bail.

Grenier said Mrs. Ribeiro was charged with violating the terms of her visa and has been transferred to Detroit, where she is awaiting a deportation hearing.

Authorities say the Ribeiros, from Belo Horizonte, Brazil, had been traveling to Massachusetts on a regular basis for two or three years to perform plastic surgery on a massage table in the basement of Sielemenn's condominium. The couple charged between $1,800 (€1,413) and $3,000 (€2,355) per procedure and relied on word-of-mouth referrals for business, mainly attracting customers from the large Brazilian immigrant population in Framingham, prosecutors said.

Two other women have come forward to say they underwent medical procedures by the Ribeiros, including one woman who was hospitalized with an infection.

Grenier said immigration officials have been talking to prosecutors about trying to resolve both the immigration case and the criminal case.

"She does have these two things occurring at the same time, but we are working with them so that both cases can run on parallel tracks," Grenier said.

Sherman said prosecutors are trying to get Mrs. Ribeiro back into state custody, but acknowledged that her return is not certain.

"Deportation is a parallel but unrelated process to our prosecution," she said. "We're doing everything we can to work with federal authorities on this matter, and we will do what we can do to return Ana Maria Miranda Ribeiro to face justice."





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