Woman Pleads Guilty To Fatal Silicone Butt Injections Into Women

ATLANTA, GA — A Florida woman pretending to be a licensed professional has pleaded guilty to injecting liquid silicone into several people, federal officials announced Tuesday. Forty-seven-year-old Deanna Roberts' illicit practice even caused the death of one woman, U.S. Attorney John Horn said. For more crime news and updates on this and other stories in the Atlanta area, click here to get Patch's daily newsletter and free, real-time news alerts.

"Lateasha Shuntel," whose real name was Lateasha Hall, was an Atlanta drag performer, getting paid for how she looked as well as how she performed. She posted on Facebook in November 2015 that she was in pain after having just undergone buttocks surgery.

In the post, she thanked Roberts for the procedure, according to news reports.

Federal prosecutors said the next day, Hall complained about feeling tightness in her torso and shortness of breath, "symptoms that are consistent with the presence of liquid silicone in the lungs," the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Georgia said in a news release.

Two days later, Hall was dead. The medical examiner found silicone in Hall's liver, kidney, heart, brain and spleen.

Horn's office said this of Hall's agonizing death: "One of the women the defendant injected with liquid silicone died about 36 hours after receiving the injection when the silicone migrated to her lungs, heart, brain, and other organs."

DeKalb County Associate Medical Examiner Dr. Geoffrey Smith, who did the autopsy, said that each of Hall's buttocks had 10 injection sites. To make matters worse, during the procedure, Roberts had punctured a blood vessel, Smith said.

"The evidence, therefore, established that the defendant punctured the blood vessel with one of the silicone injections and that the silicone was carried by the blood stream to L.H.’s lungs and other organs causing her death," the news release from the U.S. Attorney said.

“Roberts admitted that she caused the death of one person by injecting her with liquid silicone, and that she also injected liquid silicone into multiple other people, putting their lives at considerable risk,” Horn said in a statement. “Before undergoing any type of medical procedure, patients should ensure they have consulted a licensed medical provider who is qualified to provide care.”

That's exactly what Roberts pretended to be, officials said.

Roberts is scheduled to be sentenced on May 24, according to U.S. Attorney Horn.