A Florida woman will be extradited to California this week to face charges in connection with the death of a social media model to whom she had given buttocks-enlarging injections, prosecutors said.
Vivian Alexandra Gomez, 50, is charged with one felony count each of involuntary manslaughter and practicing medicine without a valid license, resulting in the death of another, said San Mateo County Dist. Atty. Steve Wagstaffe.
Gomez flew to San Francisco International Airport on April 19 to meet with Christina Ashten Gourkani, a San Jose resident and social media model whose resemblance to Kim Kardashian garnered her millions of views on some of her videos on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and OnlyFans.
Gourkani had found Gomez online and contacted her seeking silicone injections to increase the size of her buttocks, Wagstaffe said.
Gourkani and her boyfriend met Gomez at a Marriott hotel in Burlingame for the procedure.
At the hotel, Wagstaffe said, Gourkani received at least two injections of what was supposed to be gluteal silicone. Immediately after the injections, however, she began to go into distress, including convulsions.
Gourkani’s boyfriend called 911, and she was taken to a nearby hospital. She died the following day.
According to her modeling website, after Gourkani began a career as a fitness model, she gained social media recognition as a Kardashian lookalike, pushing some of her videos to go viral.
On April 20, she died “after complications from a cosmetic surgery procedure,” according to the site.
Her family said in a statement that her death was investigated by police as a homicide, connected to a “medical procedure that took a turn for the worse.”
An autopsy determined Gourkani died of an embolism and poisoning in her system, Wagstaffe said. Investigators are still working to confirm whether the substance she was injected with was gluteal silicone.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2021 warned against using silicone injections to enlarge or shape parts of the body, saying the injections can cause long-term pain, embolisms, disfigurement, stroke and death.
Silicone injections are not approved by the FDA.
The agency also warned that when silicone injections are made in areas with many blood vessels, such as the buttocks, “silicone can travel through those vessels to other parts of the body and block blood vessels in the lungs, heart, or brain. This can cause a stroke or even death.”
Gomez was arrested hours after Gourkani was pronounced dead, according to police records. She was booked by the Broward County Sheriff’s Office in Florida.
Gomez is expected to be extradited this week and to make her initial court appearance Monday, Wagstaffe said.
This story originally appeared on LA Times
