When a mother-daughter duo from Riverside administered a lethal dose of injectable silicone to the buttocks of 26-year-old Karissa Rajpaul at a Sherman Oaks home in October 2019, killing her within hours of the procedure, the negative effects it showed almost immediately would ought. it was no surprise, prosecutors said Tuesday, Feb. 20.
Rajpaul stopped breathing and began to lose consciousness after the pair – 53-year-old Libby Adame and 26-year-old Alicia Galaz – stuck two syringes into her backside, pushing the plungers several times to inject her with the liquid that was supposed to they encourage the growth of fat cells in her cheeks, making them look fuller.
Paramedics who arrived at the home after Rajpaul’s partner called 911 had no idea what was happening to her. After taking her to a hospital, Rajpaul stopped breathing and died.
Adam and Galaz should have known Rajpaul’s death was possible, prosecutors said inside the Los Angeles courtroom where the first day of the couple’s murder trial was held on Tuesday, because they had seen it happen. in the past.
Galaz was on trial for the death of another woman, Kenya Arias, a little more than a year ago, Deputy District Attorney Lee Shernock said. Arias died after having the same procedure done at a South Gate salon, Cernok said. Security camera footage showed Galaz arriving at the salon that day. The video also showed her waiting with a co-worker in the back parking lot of the salon as paramedics rushed to the front, finding Aria unconscious and unsuccessfully trying to revive her.
Cernok revealed the other woman’s death in her opening statements Tuesday as she tried to show the jury of 10 men and six women that both Adame, known as “La Tia” on social media, and Galaz should they knew the dangers of butt. -lifts they had given to hundreds of women over nearly a decade in Los Angeles County.
Cernok charged the two with implied murder—that is, the risks of the procedure were so well known to the pair that they showed malice when they injected Rajpaul with the liquid. They were charged with one count of murder, as well as three counts of performing medical procedures without a license.
The women put all their clients at risk, time and time again, while reaping wealth and fame on social media at their expense, Cernok said.
“They kept going and going to get money,” Shernock told the jury.
Attorneys for Adame and Galaz, however, disputed Cernok’s murder claims. They said the women could not be held criminally responsible for Rajpaul’s death. They said California law does not prohibit buttock lift procedures.
Since Rajpaul sought the treatment—the operation that killed her was her third session with Adame and Galaz—and consented to surgery, they contested the filing of murder charges.
“The facts are not in dispute,” Michael Flanagan, Adame’s attorney, said outside the courtroom Tuesday. “What is in question is what the law says.”
In his opening remarks, Flanagan described the operation that killed Rajpaul as a fatal accident, not murder.
“Things went wrong,” he told the jury. “This is not a cold-blooded killer.”
Guilty or not, charges filed against both women in 2021 came to light an underground culture of amateur lifting pools sought after by women in the greater Los Angeles area. The processes have roots in Mexico and Central and South America. Sometimes known as “Brazilian butt lifts,” the popular body modifications carry extreme risks, according to US regulators.
The potential harms of injectable silicone have been known for years. Such procedures have not been approved for use in the United States. The FDA has warned against them since at least 2017.
“Silicone injections can lead to long-term pain, infection, and serious injuries, including scarring and permanent disfigurement, embolism (blockage of a blood vessel, stroke, and death,” the agency wrote. “NEVER get any type of filler or liquid silicone injection for contouring or body enhancement. This means you should never get breast fillers, ‘butt fillers’ or fillers for the gaps between your muscles.”
The horror of the deaths of Rajpaul and Arias was on full display to the jury on Tuesday.
Prosecutors showed jurors autopsy photos of both women: Arias’ pale body lying on the medical examiner’s examination table, puncture wounds visible above both cheeks.
Rajpaul’s autopsy also showed deep gashes above her cheeks where Adame and Galaz stuck syringes into her. Investigators cut into her skin to examine the damage caused to her muscle tissue by the needles, as well as to extract the fluid that was injected into her. The light red liquid inside her was found to be silicone, Cernok said.
Adame and Galaz sat quietly in the small courtroom as both sides presented their arguments to the jury.
Dressed in a soft gray fur coat, Adam shifted in her chair, looked back at the family members in the gallery and whispered to Flanagan. Galaz, wearing a black and white coat decorated with newspaper-style prints, fixed her hair, occasionally smiling at her lawyer.
It was unclear Tuesday if criminal charges had been filed in Aria’s death. Shernock said her death was investigated by police when investigators heard about Rajpole’s death. But an LAPD detective who investigated Rajpaul’s death in Sherman Oaks declined to comment outside the courtroom.
Prosecutors said Galaz helped two other women administer the procedure to Arias at the South Gate salon.
After she died at a hospital, prosecutors said Arias’ cellphone was traced back to Adame and Galaz’s luxury Riverside mansion. Later that night, Arias’ phone pinged a cell tower one last time before turning off.
The first witness called on Tuesday was Rajpaul’s husband, Marco Gianuzzi.
Gianuzzi, who lived with Rajpaul in Reseda, teared up at times and spoke hesitantly from the witness stand, taking several sips from a water bottle. He said he was present at the first two operations that Adame and Galaz performed on his wife. Gianuzzi said he objected to both.
Knowing he objected to continuing to have butt lifts, Gianuzzi said he believed his wife hid the third procedure from him. On October 19, 2019, he received a call from the police informing him that his wife had died.
On cross-examination, Flanagan asked if Gianuzzi really liked the sensations he saw in his wife’s buttocks after she did the lifts. He categorically said he did not.
“She was beautiful to me like that — natural,” Gianuzzi said. “I actually dislike big butts.”
