A Riverside County woman known as “the butt lady” has been convicted of murder after a second client — a TV actor living in Malibu — died from silicone injections she administered, authorities said.
Last year, Libby Adame was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and practicing medicine without a certification for giving 26-year-old Karissa Rajpaul a fatal silicone butt injection in Sherman Oaks in 2019. But the conviction did not stop her from continuing to perform unauthorized procedures in California, prosecutors said.
On March 24, she gave an injection to “ER” actress Cindyana Santangelo, resulting in a fatal embolism.
On Thursday, a Los Angeles jury convicted Adame of second-degree murder and of practicing medicine without a certification, according to court records.
In her closing argument, L.A. County Deputy Dist. Atty. Lee Cernok said that Adame had been warned by the judge in the 2024 trial that, as she was aware of the dangers of her services, she could be convicted of murder if another client died, according to reporting from City News Service.
There’s evidence to suggest that Adame was aware of the dangers of silicone butt injections even before Rajpaul and Santangelo died from the procedure.
During the 2024 trial, prosecutors said there was security camera footage of Adame fleeing a salon in South Gate in 2018 as paramedics rushed in the front door to treat a woman who subsequently died from the injections. No charges were filed in the 2018 death.
Santangelo’s husband, Frank Santangelo, testified at the most recent trial and is also suing Adame for wrongful death in the procedure, which took place at their Malibu home.
He said his wife was “killed in the prime of her life in her own home after being unlawfully injected with unsafe and unapproved substances by Libby Adame, an unlicensed individual falsely holding herself out as qualified to perform cosmetic procedures,” according to the civil complaint.
“Tragically, her death not only could have, but should have been prevented,” he stated in the complaint. Frank Santangelo alleges that Adame fled their home as soon as she saw his wife beginning to convulse.
During this week’s trial, Adame’s lawyer, J. Michael Flanagan, denied that Adame performed the lethal Malibu injection on Cindyana Santangelo, according to CNS.
He told jurors that his client, known as “the butt lady’’ or “La Tia,’’ was working as a consultant for doctors who can legally perform buttocks injections in Mexico but was not practicing in California, according to CNS. He argued that someone else must have performed the injections before Adame arrived at Santangelo’s house.
The jury was not swayed by this argument.
Adame was previously sentenced to four years and four months in prison for the 2019 death of Rajpaul. Adame’s daughter, Alicia Galaz, was also convicted of involuntary manslaughter for assisting with the 2019 procedure and sentenced to three years and eight months in prison.
They both received credit for time already served in custody as well as time under electronic monitoring following their 2021 arrest, which meant that Adame was out of prison and back in business within a year of being sentenced.
Adame is set to face a significantly longer sentence in the death of Santangelo.
In California, second-degree murder has a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years, while practicing medicine without a certification is punishable by up to three years. Adame was also found guilty of a special allegation of causing great bodily harm, which adds another three to six years to a sentence.
She is scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 5.
Silicone butt injections continue to grow in popularity in the U.S., despite the fact that the Food and Drug Administration warns that injectable silicone for body contouring is not FDA-approved and comes with serious dangers. If the silicone migrates beyond the injection site, it can lead to stroke, infections and death, according to the FDA.
A Florida woman is currently awaiting trial in California where she is accused of delivering fatal butt injections to a Kim Kardashian look-alike.
This story originally appeared on LA Times
