LOS ANGELES (CNS) – A Riverside woman and her daughter convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the death of a woman after a butt-enlargement procedure known by some as a “Brazilian Butt-lift” (BBL) at a Sherman Oaks home in 2019 were sentenced Thursday in state prison. but a judge later ordered their release after finding they had already completed their sentences with credit for time spent under electronic monitoring.
Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge George G. Lomeli sentenced Libby Adame, 53, to four years and four months in state prison and her 26-year-old daughter, Alicia Galaz, to three years and eight months in prison in connection with with The death of 26-year-old Karissa Rajpaul on October 15, 2019, and ordered them detained over the objection of Galaz’s lawyer, Nareg Gourjian.
Hours after the women were handcuffed, the judge said he agreed with a defense attorney’s argument that the two were entitled to additional credit for time spent on electronic monitoring while out of custody following their August 2021 arrests at the home they shared in Riverside. –
“If you add it all up, it’s time for him to be served,” Lomeli told lawyers late Thursday morning. “I will order their release from this facility.”
Adame and Galaz were convicted in March of involuntary manslaughter in Rajpaul’s death, with jurors acquitting them both of the more serious charges of murder.
Adame was also convicted of three counts of practicing medicine without a license, while her daughter was found guilty of two counts of practicing medicine without a license.
In a statement read in court on her behalf, the victim’s mother, Eureka Bobee, wrote: “In that single act, you caused her family and friends an unimaginable loss… as we all grieve so deeply every day, many years later.”
She wrote that she did not want her beloved daughter’s “life, legacy and death” to be in vain and urged the two defendants, “Please, please, never harm another soul for the rest of your days.”
Officials with the Los Angeles Police Department said in a 2021 statement released after the case was filed that the cosmetic procedure involved injecting a liquid silicone substance not contained directly into the buttocks to make them appear larger, noting that the injection of silicone not contained in the body it can cause blood circulation and create emboli that can lead to serious illness or death.
“The suspects fled the scene without identifying themselves or notifying paramedics of the cosmetic procedure to initiate appropriate life-saving protocols. As a result, the victim died in the emergency room with attending physicians unaware of the silicone injection “, the police said.
“Suspects Adame and Galaz are a mother and daughter team who performed these inherently unsafe, non-FDA approved, cosmetic buttock augmentations. Neither is a licensed medical practitioner in California and their clients were recruited through Instagram,” police added.
At a hearing last year, Deputy District Attorney Lee Cernok argued that the two knew there were problems with injecting silicone into the human body based on complaints they had received from other women after the procedure and said they failed to inform paramedics about what substance had been injected into Rajpaul’s buttocks.
Adame’s attorney, J. Michael Flanagan, argued at the time that the murder count requires “intent to kill” and said there was “definitely no intent to kill.”
